Go ahead. Move the airplane around in
the movie clip above. Notice that the buttons behave (although not linked
to anything) in that their actions for mouse over and mouse down work as
they should.
Creating a custom cursor in Flash 5
is extremely easy to do. There is one most important fact to keep in mind
when creating custom cursors for your movies. Always have the layer the
cursor is on on top of all other layers that you don't want to hide the
cursor and don't put anything else on the layer that the cursor is on.
You can use fonts or drawings for
your custom cursor. For this tutorial I have taken the easy way out and
used a font. Also, I used one of the standard buttons that come in the
Flash 5 Button Library. You can access that library from the Window menu.
Window>Common Libraries>Buttons.
1
First create your
layers. I have an extra layer (Text) that is not necessary but
you'll want a buttons layer and a cursor layer. Remember to keep
the cursor layer above your button layer.
2
If you use a font
like I have you'll want to set the Text Options to Static Text.
I used the Webdings font and the letter
"j" to get the airplane.
Once you have your text and set the Text
Options to Static Text you need to break apart the text. You can
do that by selecting the text and going to the Modify menu.
Modify>Break Apart.
3
After breaking
apart the text it really isn't text anymore. It is now an image as
far as Flash is concerned.
With the image selected go to the Insert
menu. Insert>Convert to Symbol.
The Symbol properties dialog box will
open. Type in a name for your cursor and set the behavior as a
movie clip. I named mine cursor. Click ok.
4
With the new movie
clip selected go to the Instance Panel and in the name box type a
name for your cursor movie clip. I named mine airplane. Click ok.
5
Now select the
movie clip if it is not selected and right click on it. In the
menu that appears choose Actions. The object actions dialog will
appear.
Click on the Arrow next to Actions. Scroll
down to onClipEvent and double click it. It will now show up in
the script panel of the Object Actions Dialog.
Your script panel will look something
like:
onClipEvent (load) {
}
6
Now go back to the
left pane and find the Objects. Click on it to open it and look
for Mouse. Click on the arrow next to mouse to open it and double
click on hide. Your script will now look similar to:
onClipEvent (load) {
Mouse.hide();
}
7
Go back to Actions
in the left pane and look for startDrag.
8
In the Target:
field you need to type in the name of the movie clip. This is the
name you gave your movie clip in step 4 above. Mine is named
airplane so I typed that in followed by a comma and the word true.
This is an expression so be sure that the
Expression box is checked as above.
Your script panel should now look like the
one below.
9
That's it. You're
done. Go to the File menu. File>Publish Preview. You'll now be
able to see your new cursor in action.
You are not limited to static images. I
imagine you could even create an animated cursor to use in this
manner.
