This is a simple and quick tutorial for creating a custom scroll bar. We'll dynamically load in our text using an array in Actionscript then we'll connect a custom scrollbar. In the files below we have three Movie Clips on the stage, two hands and a square. The two hands will act as our pointers allowing us to gradually scroll up and down. The square will act as our slider allowing us to slide the content up or down as you would do with a normal scrollbar slider.
Step 1 - Creating Our Text Fields
Open up the Starter File, go to the Actions Layer and press F9 to open up our Actions Panel. We need to create a Text Field and Format the text inside it, so we declare our variables for the Text Field and Text Format, and then give them some basic properties.
var myFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
myFormat.font = "Arial";
myFormat.color = 0×333333;
myFormat.size = 24;
addChild(myText);
myText.text = "This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!This is the Flash Essential custom scrollbar tutorial!!!";
myText.setTextFormat(myFormat);
myText.wordWrap = true;
myText.multiline = true;
myText.setTextFormat(myFormat);
myText.x = 100;
myText.y = 100;
myText.width = 300;
myText.height = 200;
Step 2 - Adding Our Mouse Events
Now we add some Mouse Events to our movie clips on the stage. Inside the functions we give our myText text field a scrollV method which means it's scrolling vertically, we then add some math so it reduces the scroll value by one each time its clicked. We do the same for the scrollDown_mc except we use += which adds one to the scroll value every time it's clicked.
function upScroll(event:MouseEvent):void
{
trace(myText.scrollV);
myText.scrollV -= 1;
}
scrollDown_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, downScroll);
function downScroll(event:MouseEvent):void
{
trace(myText.scrollV);
myText.scrollV += 1;
}
Step 3 - Controlling The Slider
First we'll add our mouse events, you'll notice we add our dropSlider to the stage instead of our slider_mc. This is to stop it scrolling once you have clicked away from the scroll bar.
stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, dropSlider);
var bounds:Rectangle = new Rectangle(slider_mc.x, slider_mc.y,0,70);
var dragging:Boolean = false;
function dragSlider(event:MouseEvent):void
{
slider_mc.startDrag(false,bounds);
dragging = true;
}
function dropSlider(event:MouseEvent):void
{
slider_mc.stopDrag();
dragging = false;
}
function checkSlider(event:Event):void
{
//if(dragging){trace("scroll");}
myText.scrollV = Math.round ((slider_mc.y - bounds.y)* myText.maxScrollV/70)
}
stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, checkSlider);
function textScrolled(event:Event):void
{
slider_mc.y = bounds.y + (myText.scrollV * 70/myText.maxScrollV);
}
myText.addEventListener(Event.SCROLL, textScrolled);
Conclusion
Custom scrollbars can be useful if you want a custom look to your site. If you have a grunge style site the last thing you want is the ordinary scroll bars showing up, so this gives you a chance to create your own. Hope it helps.
This post is tagged AS3, custom scrollbar, Flash CS3
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15 Comments
my out put keeps saying that my .fla is not a function what do i do?
I looked hi and low for this, but as an xml fed textbox, so I came up with this highbred:
//Create the URLLOader instance
var myLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader()
//the data will come as URL-encoded variables
myLoader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES
//Load using an URLRequest, even beeing local
myLoader.load(new URLRequest("about.txt"))
//onLoad handler listener
myLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onDataLoad)
//Error handling
myLoader.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, onIOError)
myLoader.addEventListener(SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, onSecurityError)
//Could be an error or just a message
myLoader.addEventListener(HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_STATUS, onHTTPStatus)
//add a listener for the complete event
function onDataLoad(evt:Event){
Title_txt.text = evt.target.data.Title
Comments_txt.text = evt.target.data.Comments
}
//error callbacks
function onIOError(evt:IOErrorEvent){
trace("IOError: "+evt.text)
}
function onHTTPStatus(evt:HTTPStatusEvent){
trace("HTTPStatus: "+evt.status)
}
function onSecurityError(evt:SecurityErrorEvent){
trace("SecurityError: "+evt.text)
}
scrollUP_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, upScroll);
function upScroll(event:MouseEvent):void
{
trace(Comments_txt.scrollV);
Comments_txt.scrollV -= 1;
}
scrollDown_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, downScroll);
function downScroll(event:MouseEvent):void
{
trace(Comments_txt.scrollV);
Comments_txt.scrollV += 1;
}
slider_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, dragSlider);
stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, dropSlider);
var bounds:Rectangle = new Rectangle(slider_mc.x, slider_mc.y,0,70);
var dragging:Boolean = false;
function dragSlider(event:MouseEvent):void
{
slider_mc.startDrag(false,bounds);
dragging = true;
}
function dropSlider(event:MouseEvent):void
{
slider_mc.stopDrag();
dragging = false;
}
function checkSlider(event:Event):void
{
//if(dragging){trace("scroll");}
Comments_txt.scrollV = Math.round ((slider_mc.y - bounds.y)* Comments_txt.maxScrollV/70)
}
stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, checkSlider);
function textScrolled(event:Event):void
{
slider_mc.y = bounds.y + (Comments_txt.scrollV * 70/Comments_txt.maxScrollV);
}
Comments_txt.addEventListener(Event.SCROLL, textScrolled);
Works like a champ! Thanks!
hello - i tried your script and the following problem appeared: if i use static text (converted into mc of course), the scroller will move, but the text won't. if i use dynamic text (also converted into mc of course), the text will not be displayed at all.
why is that and how can it be fixed?
( i did not create a scripted text field from scratch, i used one from my library. but still, it shouldn't make any difference so long as i have my layers in order and my text converted into movie clips, right?)
+
I can't seem to set the color of the text, it's says that 0×333333 is an error i don't know if you wrote ir wrong but i would apriciate a litle help
hello and thank for your nice tutorial
in step 1 the first code has a problem
myFormat.color = 0×333333; must change to myFormat.color = "0×333333″;
appreciate you
Hello,
Does anyone seem to have the issue of the slide bar slightly shifting left only after the first click?
thanks.
thanks is so good
i had some, and that is
the solution
back here
Yes, I search this since 3 days !!!! I love this tuto, is very so good !!!!
miriam, this will only work for text, don't convet it into a new symbol.
Hi! Great code. But is there any line of code to make it continuously scroll up/down when either scrollUP_mc or scrollDown_mc is held down? I know in as2 you can use setInterval, but this is as3 and i am a noob.
Thanks!
Hi,
Great tutorial, I just have one problem. I have a few paragraphs of text but working from this code it wont let me use line breaks in the text.
I keep getting the following error
1095: Syntax error: A string literal must be terminated before the line break.
gran tutorial….!! gracias!
If you're using this on a dynamically changing textfield, you should kill that "70″ in the update functions and change it to bounds.height.
This is sloppy. Add…
trace("Updated");
to the "checkSlider" function and you can see that it continuously polls the checkSlider function. Anyone that cares about CPU cycles should refuse to use this code.
Your downloadable example is from some out of date version of Flash too.
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