Draw in a Flash movie.

This tutorials illustrates how to use onMouseMove onMouseDown and onMouseUp events to draw lines in a Flash movie.

Download and install Flash Designer 5

1. Create a new document and set the size to 400 x 300 ("Frame" > "Frame Size")
2. Set "Frame 1" to "Stop" ("Frame" > "Frame Delay" and check "Stop", click OK)
3. Draw the pen cursor using the Shape tool. Select both shapes and choose "Edit" > "Convert to Sprite". Quit the sprite with "Esc" key.
4. Select the sprite and choose "Item" > "Placement Properties". Check "ActionScript Target" and rename the item to "PenItem":
   
   
   
   
5. Choose "Frame" > "ActionScript" and paste the following code:

_root.createEmptyMovieClip("myLine", 0);  // create blank movie to draw on



function moveroutine() // this moves the pen to follow the mouse

{

 PenItem._x = _xmouse; 

 PenItem._y = _ymouse - PenItem._height; 

}



function drawroutine() // this draws the line when the button is pressed

{

  myLine.lineTo(_xmouse, _ymouse);

  moveroutine(); 

}



_root.onMouseMove = moveroutine; // initially we only move the pen 



_root.onMouseDown = function() // when the user clicks the button 

{ 

   myLine.moveTo(_xmouse, _ymouse);

   myLine.lineStyle(2, 0xff0000, 100);

   _root.onMouseMove = drawroutine;

}



_root.onMouseUp = function() // when the button is released

{

   _root.onMouseMove = moveroutine;

}

Hit F9 to preview the movie.

Note: You have to target Flash Player 6 or above.

Download source project t1042.zip (4 kb)