21st Sep 2006

[JSFL] swap symbols in the same layer

I wrote JSFL which enables flash to swap symbols in a layer with an item from the library.
“swap symbols in the same layer”(To install this command, just run it. Extension Manager is required.)

When you are creating a timeline animation, you might want to swap symbols in a layer with keeping movement. Usually, what you do is select the item, press “swap” button and repeat these process. For me a few times are acceptable. However, around five times, I would get agitated, and around ten times I would feel as though it was a torture or something like that. Although it actually takes several minutes, I can’t stand this kind of tedious job psychologically.
Thus, with my motto “I’ll work hard to get efficiency”, I wrote an automation script.

How to use this,
Select a layer which contains target instance and select a symbol from the library.
Then, run the command. Unless an error occurs, it’ll be done.

You should consider these followings,
I intend to use this command for timeline animation. Therefore, if a keyframe has more than two object, an error occurs.
Obviously, you can swap only Movie Clip, Graphic, and Button.
This also doesn’t support bitmap and video.

Rights and agreements,
I won’t have any responsibilities for damages caused by this script, even if something should happen.
This script is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

In fact I use this script for my ongoing project and it works pretty well. We should let computers do things which can be done by computers and spend our recourses for creative works. It reduces my stress too and I feel easy to have trial and error. I believe this kind of small thing contributes qualities and productivities.

9/23 added
the name has changed
to “swap symbols in the same layer”
from “swap symbols in a layer”

Monologue, JSFL, Flash