ITMO University
“Programming Technologies” Department

Development of interactive Macromedia Flash applications using state-machine technology

(C) 2003 M.M. Mazin, V.G. Parfenov, A.A.Shalyto

Saint-Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics

From here it is possible to download the full text of documentation in Russian in a PDF-format (440 кб)
Here is the application (169 кб)
You need to have Macromedia Flash Player installed. You can download it here.
Source code (30 кб)

Annotation

Macromedia Flash is considered to be the best solution for Internet application development. Wide popularity of this technology in the world is a result of advantages it provides. Size of executable file is small; technology is supported by numerous browsers, etc.

Usually content of the animation is defined by it’s script. There are linear and non-linear scripts. Linear scripts have no crotches and may be implemented using embedded means of Macromedia Flash editor without additional programming. However non-linear scripts need ActionScript usage for implementation because they have crotches. Generally interactive animation content is defined by non-linear script in contrast to cartoons which may be defined by linear script.

Authors propose to use state-machine technology to formalize transition from script to source code in ActionScript language. The method that is proposed in current article provides state-machine usage in specification, source text and logging.