[thelist] Flash - is there any way?

[John Dowdell]

At 11:09 AM 5/1/1, <sales at iibiz.com> wrote:
> Is there anyway to make modifications to a Flash .swf file, without
> the .fla file? Not trying to steal anything here.  Just want to add
> a little text to an existing Flash piece.  Original designer has
> disappeared and can't be reached to get the .fla file.

Maybe, but the first thing to check would be whether the original
designer's contract included the right to subsequently modify the files.
(The fact that the source .FLA file was not part of the contract could be a
tipoff.)

For some work you could import the .SWF to the Macromedia Flash 5 authoring
tool and do edits, but the SWF is a deliverable file, without the authoring
constructs you'd find in the FLA... for simple files this can work, but not
for complex files. (The distinction is similar to how you might use
Photoshop to do simple .JPG edits even when you don't have the source
.PSD.)

Other than that, because SWF is an openly published format, there are
utilities which can examine and change some contents of a SWF file. I
haven't evaluated these myself, but checking the resource links at a
third-party site like FlashKit or Were-here.com might be a way to proceed.

jd





John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US
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