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Flash Lite: Graphics for Mobile Devices


Getting Started with Client Applications

The development tool of choice for Flash Lite applications is Flash 8 Professional, which comes with built-in Flash Lite 1.1 development tools. You can download a free, fully functional 30-day trial of Flash 8 Professional from Adobe (www.adobe .com). Support for Flash Lite 2, as well as new device emulators, is also available as free downloads from Adobe. If you are using Flash MX Professional 2004 for general Flash development, you can also generate mobile applications with that. However, you need to first install some DLLs and other necessary files manually.

As Figure 1 shows, the main Flash 8 window is different from other tools or IDEs. The timeline on the top of the screen shows the layers used in the application and points out the keyframe currently being worked on at the stage. On the right side, there is a collection of panels, including the library for storing objects. The property inspector is at the bottom of the screen.

[Click image to view at full size]

Figure 1: Main Flash 8 window.

To get started with development, start a new project by clicking the Global Phones link under Create from Template in the Flash 8 start-up screen. In the following dialog window, select Flash Lite 1-1 - Symbian Series 60, and then press OK.

Save the resulting blank application with a descriptive name (like "baseball.fla"). The .fla file format is used in the Flash Lite authoring phase. When the application is published (compiled) for installation on a real phone, the resulting file format is .swf.


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