5. Make a single exe file

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Some larger projects need to incorporate many resource files other than the main movie.

E.g.. The required resource files on disk

1. SWF Movies
   1. sports
      1. football.swf
      2. basketball.swf
      3. swim.swf
   2. tour
      1. Beijing
      2. Shanghai
      3. Wuhan
2. MP3 Sounds
   1. s1.mp3
   2. s2.mp3
   3. s3.mp3
3. Pictures
   1. p1.jpg
   2. p2.jpg
   3. p3.jpg

The main movie needs to load these resource files while playing.

Create the main movie

First, create the main movie using Macromedia Flash MX. Providing the resource files are put in "c:\flash\single", we save the main movie in the folder, and name it "single.swf". In "single.swf", we load the resources with relative path names. For example, to load the movie "Shanghai.swf", we call the method "loadMovie" in Action Script like this

Create the SWFKit project

Now we can create a new project by adding the main movie into the movie list in SWFKit. Where should we put the resource files? Just put them in the same folder of the output executable file?

Yes, if the "pack movies" option in SWFKit is not checked, it can work if you put the resources in the same folder of the output executable file.

When the "pack movies" is not checked, SWFKit will not pack the main movie into the output exe file, but copy it into the same folder of the exe file. That is to say, the main movie and the resources will be in same folder, just like the Flash authoring environment.

But if the "pack movies" is checked, things are changed. SWFKit will pack the main movie into the output exe file. When the exe file is about to run, the packed movie will be extracted into a temporary folder, then the movie and the resources are in different folder. When the movie calls the method

The Flash Player cannot find the "Shanghai.swf", for the movie is in the temporary folder and "resource/movies/tour/shanghai.swf" is not in this folder.

Even though you can make it to work by not checking the "pack movies" option, it isn't what we want. We want to make a single exe file, but in this way we will get an exe file with many external resource files.

The following section introduces you a way to make a single executable file. It will always work even if you don't want to make a single exe file (unchecking the "pack movies" or the "pack attachments" options).

Add resource files into the attachment list

To resolve the problem in the above section, we can add the resources into the attachment list. In SWFKit, create subfolders such as "Movies", "Sounds" and "Pictures" under the "Application" folder and add the resource files into the corresponding folders. Then in the attachment list, we have the same directory structure as on the disk.

Check the "pack movies" and "pack attached file" options. SWFKit will pack all the files into the output executable file, that is to say, we can get a single exe file.

Is this enough? No, the application will extract the packed movies automatically when it is about to run, but won't extract the attached files. The resource file must be extracted before they can be loaded by the main movie. You must tell SWFKit to do so in FFish Script (in the "initialize" script)

var res_path = getAdditionalFile(); Application.setBasePath(res_path);

If you call the "getAdditionFile" method later with the same parameter, SWFKit will check to see if the required files or folders have been extracted. If the files or folders have already been extracted, it won't do extraction again.

The folder SWFKit extracts the attached files into is different from the temporary folder for extracting the packed movies. The application cannot work if you don't set the base directory to it. So we must set the base directory of the application to the folder contains the extracted resource files using the "Application.setBasePath" method.

Summary

To make a single exe file, you should

1. Add the additional files into the attachment list and make the directory structure same as on disk.
2. In the "Initialize" script, tell the application to extract the attachments by calling the "getAdditionFile" method.
3. Set the base directory to the folder contains the extracted additional files (the "getAdditionalFile" method returns the path name of the folder).

Whether the "pack movies" and "pack attached file" options are set or not, the applications built in this way will always work.