There are three basic types of image that can be applied to a Component:
| · | None: no image data is provided for the Component.
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| · | Default Images: make use of Flash vector-based graphic routines.
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| · | External Images: the designer provides an absolute or partial URL for the location of an external image that is to be mapped to the Component.
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Default Images
Default images are created using vector-based graphics functionality resident within the Flash Player. Default images are essentially a rectangular region with the following customisable Properties:
| · | border type: a default image border can be defined as either invisible or visible with a specifiable thickness and colour.
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| · | border radius: each corner of the default image can be defined as either square or rounded.
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| · | fill colour: a default image may be filled either with a single colour or with a left-to-right gradient between two colours.
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The designer specifies the Image Property to "default" in order to define internal default images.
Default Images And Control Components
The designer can use the common Component Image Properties to define a Default Image implementation for Control Components. In addition to providing the image for the Control Up mouse-related event, this Default Image implementation also provides in-built 'vanilla' images for the Control Down and Control Over events based on the associated default image Property settings.
External Images
More typically, a designer wishing to create a media-rich custom look-and-feel will do so by providing external images and resources. This is achieved by setting the Image and Control Image Properties with a URL to one or other of the following resource types:
| · | JPG resource types must be in baseline format and not progressive format. Alpha channel information will not be available (see below).
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| · | SWF resource types can simply be an image in SWF format or alternatively they can be an actual Flash Movieclip. This provides designers with the opportunity to embed non-trivial Flash Movieclips into a Pollstar100 Application.
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Image Masks
Note that if an image contains alpha channel (bitmask) information then the only way to preserve this is to supply the image in SWF format. Professional image editing tools such as Photoshop CS and Illustrator provide options to export images in SWF format (In ImageReady, choose File > Export > Macromedia Flash SWF). Alternatively, image formats that contain alpha channel information such as PNG or TGA may be imported into a Flash IDE (ie: Macromedia Flash MX) and then saved out as SWF files. A third option is to convert an image format containing alpha channel information into SWF format using a third-party conversion utility. For example, it is possible to convert PNG to SWF using freely available open-source PHP functionality such as MING:
http://uk.php.net/ming
http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function.swfbitmap.php
