readme

flash swf file player

TOOLS FOR MING

  These are various tools useful in development of ming.  None are
  particularly user friendly.  All take one command line argument, a file
  name.  listswf and listfdb aren't very smart about checking for the end of
  the file, so you should pipe it through a pager.. 
  (Peter L.: What does the orig. author mean with "should pipe it through a pager"?)
  
try "make <name>"  name is the program you want to build.

make swftoperl
make all_binaries

general tools:
  bindump - show file data in hex and binary
  hexdump - show file data in hex

  (comment by Peter L.:)  Who need this? standard hexdump (e.g. in package util-linux on linux(suse7.2)) is much more powerful
  and there are many hex-programs for win.
  
list tools:
  listswf    - swf format disassembler
  listaction - show actionscript in the swf
  listfdb    - show contents of fdb font file
  listmp3    - show frame header info in mp3 files
  listjpeg   - show frame header info in jpeg files

swfto... converter:  
  swftoperl   - attempt to make a perl/ming script out of an swf file
                Look at swftoperl.html
  swftophp    - attempt to make a php/ming script out of an swf file
  swftopython - a todo for pythonfriends :-) not done yet.
  
  idea: only one sourcefile for listswf, swftoperl, swftophp, swftopython.
  because all are similiar. So all 4 programs can profit from changes in one source.
  
  prerequisite: all ming-wrappers (php,perl,python) are nearly at the same developmentstatus.
  (currently not synchronized)
   
fonts:
  makefdb - rip fdb font definition files out of a swf or generator template file
  	    
	swf maybe not contain all characters (for saving filesize), 
	but generator template files contain all. (right?)
	
	How do you make a generator template file?  Write some text in a flash movie
	using MM Flash(4,5,..?), under "save as.." select "Generator Template".  Feed that
	file into makefdb, and it'll save every font def'n found therein into a file
	<font>.fdb.  If you don't save as a template, it won't write the entire glyph
	set out, only the letters you've actually used..  See, it's smart that way.

graphics:
  png2dbl  - convert a png-file to dbl
  gif2dbl  - convert a gif-file to dbl
  gif2mask - convert a gif image to an alpha mask 
  
  There is a software named auto-trace (http://autotrace.sourceforge.net), that can vectorize a bitmap (*.bmp,*.pbm,..)
  and save it to swf (using ming) only using SWFShapes. Then just "swfto... swffile" and  .. smile. 
   
sound:
  raw2adpcm - convert a raw(pcm?) soundfile to a adpcm-coded soundfile (smaller size than raw)