One way to use Ming:
an old but good ming tutorial by jerryscript
Trace using Ming
Update: the trace approach below probably still works but easier to just use trace() + Firefox FlashTracer from here : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3469
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| If you use Flash to write Actionscript you probably use trace(); all the time and will notice it is not present in Ming because there is no GUI to display the output. Well you can use XPanel and here are two examples that use it one two |
What is so cool about Ming 0.3a ? (part I)
aside from the fact that it is open source, cross platform, and free it also compiles much of MX Actionscript including the MX Drawing API.So you can make movies using Ming using standard MX Actionscript and you can compile these movies via the command line.
For Example
to draw a triangle using Flash MX you might put this code into frame # 1
_root.createEmptyMovieClip( 'triangle', 1 );
with ( _root.triangle ) {
lineStyle( 5, 0xff00ff, 100 );
moveTo( 200, 200 );
lineTo( 300,300 );
lineTo( 100, 300 );
lineTo( 200, 200 );
}
to make the same movie in Ming 0.3a you can just put the above
actionscript into a fairly standard template for example
<?ming_setScale(20.00000000);
ming_useswfversion(6);
$movie = new SWFMovie();
$movie->setDimension(550,400);
$movie->setBackground(0xcc, 0xcc, 0xcc );
$movie->setRate(31);// mx actionscript
$strAction = "
_root.createEmptyMovieClip( 'triangle', 1 );
with ( _root.triangle ) {
lineStyle( 5, 0xff00ff, 100 );
moveTo( 200, 200 );
lineTo( 300,300 );
lineTo( 100, 300 );
lineTo( 200, 200 );}
";
$movie->add(new SWFAction(str_replace("\r", "", $strAction)));
$movie->save("trianglemx.swf");
? >
to compile it use "#php trianglemx.php" which will output
'trianglemx.swf', that is it.so far it has compiled all the actionscript i have tried, at most requiring a few minor tweaks.
of course you do not have to compile the movie into a swf in advance. you can just put the php code onto the server and dynamically output the swf each time it is called (particularly useful if the movie draws on dynamic content such as from a MySQL database for example).
There is a lot more to Ming than just this. For more examples and source code see the menu on the left and see the links section for other sites with examples.
1 // a red square...
2 <?
3 // this sets the scale to a similar format as that used in flash
4 Ming_setScale(20);
5 // publish this movie for the flash 6 player
6 ming_useswfversion(6);
7 // create a movie, here we call it $movie
8 $movie=new SWFMovie();
9 // 550 by 400 is the default in flash
10 $movie->setDimension(550,400);
11 // background set to grey
12 $movie->setBackground(0xcc,0xcc,0xcc);
13 // frame rate of 12 is the default in flash
14 $movie->setRate(12);
15 // create a shape, here we call it $squareshape
16 $squareshape=new SWFShape();
17 // give it a red fill
18 $squareshape->setRightFill(255,0,0);
19 // draw that shape in a clockwise direction
20 $squareshape->drawLine(100,0); # draw the top line
21 $squareshape->drawLine(0,100); # draw the right line
22 $squareshape->drawLine(-100,0); # draw the bottom line
23 $squareshape->drawLine(0,-100); # draw the left line
24 // add $squareshape to the movie and create a reference
25 // to it called $squaresymbol so we can move it later
26 $squaresymbol=$movie->add($squareshape);
27 // now we can move $squareshape
28 $squaresymbol->moveTo(100,100);
29 // save $movie to disk, here we call it square.swf
30 $movie->save("square.swf");
31 ?>