LVIII. Ming functions for Flash

Warning

This extension is EXPERIMENTAL. The behaviour of this extension -- including the names of its functions and anything else documented about this extension -- may change without notice in a future release of PHP. Use this extension at your own risk.

Introduction

First of all: Ming is not an acronym. Ming is an open-source (LGPL) library which allows you to create SWF ("Flash") format movies. Ming supports almost all of Flash 4's features, including: shapes, gradients, bitmaps (pngs and jpegs), morphs ("shape tweens"), text, buttons, actions, sprites ("movie clips"), streaming mp3, and color transforms --the only thing that's missing is sound events.

Note that all values specifying length, distance, size, etc. are in "twips", twenty units per pixel. That's pretty much arbitrary, though, since the player scales the movie to whatever pixel size is specified in the embed/object tag, or the entire frame if not embedded.

Ming offers a number of advantages over the existing PHP/libswf module. You can use Ming anywhere you can compile the code, whereas libswf is closed-source and only available for a few platforms, Windows not one of them. Ming provides some insulation from the mundane details of the SWF file format, wrapping the movie elements in PHP objects. Also, Ming is still being maintained; if there's a feature that you want to see, just let us know ming@opaque.net.

Ming was added in PHP 4.0.5.

Requirements

To use Ming with PHP, you first need to build and install the Ming library. Source code and installation instructions are available at the Ming home page: http://www.opaque.net/ming/ along with examples, a small tutorial, and the latest news.

Download the ming archive. Unpack the archive. Go in the Ming directory. make. make install.

This will build libming.so and install it into /usr/lib/, and copy ming.h into /usr/include/. Edit the PREFIX= line in the Makefile to change the installation directory.

Installation

Example 1. built into php (unix)



       mkdir <phpdir>/ext/ming
       cp php_ext/* <phpdir>/ext/ming
       cd <phpdir>
       ./buildconf 
       ./configure --with-ming <other config options>

       

Build and install php as usual, restart web server if necessary.

Now either just add extension=php_ming.so to your php.ini file, or put dl('php_ming.so'); at the head of all of your Ming scripts.

Runtime Configuration

This extension has no configuration directives defined in php.ini.

Resource Types

Predefined Constants

The constants below are defined by this extension, and will only be available when the extension has either been compiled into PHP or dynamically loaded at runtime.

SWFBUTTON_HIT (integer)

SWFBUTTON_DOWN (integer)

SWFBUTTON_OVER (integer)

SWFBUTTON_UP (integer)

SWFBUTTON_MOUSEUPOUTSIDE (integer)

SWFBUTTON_DRAGOVER (integer)

SWFBUTTON_DRAGOUT (integer)

SWFBUTTON_MOUSEUP (integer)

SWFBUTTON_MOUSEDOWN (integer)

SWFBUTTON_MOUSEOUT (integer)

SWFBUTTON_MOUSEOVER (integer)

SWFFILL_RADIAL_GRADIENT (integer)

SWFFILL_LINEAR_GRADIENT (integer)

SWFFILL_TILED_BITMAP (integer)

SWFFILL_CLIPPED_BITMAP (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_HASLENGTH (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_NOEDIT (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_PASSWORD (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_MULTILINE (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_WORDWRAP (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_DRAWBOX (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_NOSELECT (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_HTML (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_ALIGN_LEFT (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_ALIGN_RIGHT (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_ALIGN_CENTER (integer)

SWFTEXTFIELD_ALIGN_JUSTIFY (integer)

SWFACTION_ONLOAD (integer)

SWFACTION_ENTERFRAME (integer)

SWFACTION_UNLOAD (integer)

SWFACTION_MOUSEMOVE (integer)

SWFACTION_MOUSEDOWN (integer)

SWFACTION_MOUSEUP (integer)

SWFACTION_KEYDOWN (integer)

SWFACTION_KEYUP (integer)

SWFACTION_DATA (integer)

Predefined Classes

The classes below are defined by this extension, and will only be available when the extension has either been compiled into PHP or dynamically loaded at runtime.

Ming introduces 13 new objects in PHP, all with matching methods and attributes. To use them, you need to know about objects.

swfshape

swffill

swfgradient

swfbitmap

swftext

swftextfield

swffont

swfdisplayitem

swfmovie

swfbutton

swfaction

swfmorph

swfsprite

Table of Contents
ming_setcubicthreshold --  Set cubic threshold (?)
ming_setscale --  Set scale (?)
ming_useswfversion --  Use SWF version (?)
SWFAction -- Creates a new Action.
SWFBitmap->getHeight -- Returns the bitmap's height.
SWFBitmap->getWidth -- Returns the bitmap's width.
SWFBitmap -- Loads Bitmap object
swfbutton_keypress --  Returns the action flag for keyPress(char)
SWFbutton->addAction -- Adds an action
SWFbutton->addShape -- Adds a shape to a button
SWFbutton->setAction -- Sets the action
SWFbutton->setdown -- Alias for addShape(shape, SWFBUTTON_DOWN))
SWFbutton->setHit -- Alias for addShape(shape, SWFBUTTON_HIT)
SWFbutton->setOver -- Alias for addShape(shape, SWFBUTTON_OVER)
SWFbutton->setUp -- Alias for addShape(shape, SWFBUTTON_UP)
SWFbutton -- Creates a new Button.
SWFDisplayItem->addColor -- Adds the given color to this item's color transform.
SWFDisplayItem->move -- Moves object in relative coordinates.
SWFDisplayItem->moveTo -- Moves object in global coordinates.
SWFDisplayItem->multColor -- Multiplies the item's color transform.
SWFDisplayItem->remove -- Removes the object from the movie
SWFDisplayItem->Rotate -- Rotates in relative coordinates.
SWFDisplayItem->rotateTo -- Rotates the object in global coordinates.
SWFDisplayItem->scale -- Scales the object in relative coordinates.
SWFDisplayItem->scaleTo -- Scales the object in global coordinates.
SWFDisplayItem->setDepth -- Sets z-order
SWFDisplayItem->setName -- Sets the object's name
SWFDisplayItem->setRatio -- Sets the object's ratio.
SWFDisplayItem->skewX -- Sets the X-skew.
SWFDisplayItem->skewXTo -- Sets the X-skew.
SWFDisplayItem->skewY -- Sets the Y-skew.
SWFDisplayItem->skewYTo -- Sets the Y-skew.
SWFDisplayItem -- Creates a new displayitem object.
SWFFill->moveTo -- Moves fill origin
SWFFill->rotateTo -- Sets fill's rotation
SWFFill->scaleTo -- Sets fill's scale
SWFFill->skewXTo -- Sets fill x-skew
SWFFill->skewYTo -- Sets fill y-skew
SWFFill -- Loads SWFFill object
swffont->getwidth -- Returns the string's width
SWFFont -- Loads a font definition
SWFGradient->addEntry -- Adds an entry to the gradient list.
SWFGradient -- Creates a gradient object
SWFMorph->getshape1 -- Gets a handle to the starting shape
SWFMorph->getshape2 -- Gets a handle to the ending shape
SWFMorph -- Creates a new SWFMorph object.
SWFMovie->add -- Adds any type of data to a movie.
SWFMovie->nextframe -- Moves to the next frame of the animation.
SWFMovie->output -- Dumps your lovingly prepared movie out.
SWFMovie->remove -- Removes the object instance from the display list.
SWFMovie->save -- Saves your movie in a file.
SWFMovie->setbackground -- Sets the background color.
SWFMovie->setdimension -- Sets the movie's width and height.
SWFMovie->setframes -- Sets the total number of frames in the animation.
SWFMovie->setrate -- Sets the animation's frame rate.
SWFMovie->streammp3 -- Streams a MP3 file.
SWFMovie -- Creates a new movie object, representing an SWF version 4 movie.
SWFShape->addFill -- Adds a solid fill to the shape.
SWFShape->drawCurve -- Draws a curve (relative).
SWFShape->drawCurveTo -- Draws a curve.
SWFShape->drawLine -- Draws a line (relative).
SWFShape->drawLineTo -- Draws a line.
SWFShape->movePen -- Moves the shape's pen (relative).
SWFShape->movePenTo -- Moves the shape's pen.
SWFShape->setLeftFill -- Sets left rasterizing color.
SWFShape->setLine -- Sets the shape's line style.
SWFShape->setRightFill -- Sets right rasterizing color.
SWFShape -- Creates a new shape object.
SWFSprite->add -- Adds an object to a sprite
SWFSprite->nextframe -- Moves to the next frame of the animation.
SWFSprite->remove -- Removes an object to a sprite
SWFSprite->setframes -- Sets the total number of frames in the animation.
SWFSprite -- Creates a movie clip (a sprite)
SWFText->addString -- Draws a string
SWFText->getWidth -- Computes string's width
SWFText->moveTo -- Moves the pen
SWFText->setColor -- Sets the current font color
SWFText->setFont -- Sets the current font
SWFText->setHeight -- Sets the current font height
SWFText->setSpacing -- Sets the current font spacing
SWFText -- Creates a new SWFText object.
SWFTextField->addstring -- Concatenates the given string to the text field
SWFTextField->align -- Sets the text field alignment
SWFTextField->setbounds -- Sets the text field width and height
SWFTextField->setcolor -- Sets the color of the text field.
SWFTextField->setFont -- Sets the text field font
SWFTextField->setHeight -- Sets the font height of this text field font.
SWFTextField->setindentation -- Sets the indentation of the first line.
SWFTextField->setLeftMargin -- Sets the left margin width of the text field.
SWFTextField->setLineSpacing -- Sets the line spacing of the text field.
SWFTextField->setMargins -- Sets the margins width of the text field.
SWFTextField->setname -- Sets the variable name
SWFTextField->setrightMargin -- Sets the right margin width of the text field.
SWFTextField -- Creates a text field object