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Flash Decompiler - Ribbon bar

What's that exactly?

"Ribbon" control was introduced by Microsoft in Office 2007. It's not just a new control - it's a new user interface ideology. Ribbon control replaces traditional toolbars and menus with tabbed groups (Categories). Each group is logically split into Panels and each panel may contain various controls and command buttons.

In addition, Ribbon control provides smart layout maximally utilizing the available space. For example, if a Panel has been stretched and has no place to display all available controls, it becomes a menu button which can display sub-items on a popup menu.

We aspire for new innovations in our products as well, so we proudly introduce Ribbon bar in Flash Decompiler Trillix for your convenience. As it is mentioned above, it contains several so named "categories". Let's review all of them:

1. "Manage" tab allows you to manage Flash files, preview them, see their properties, add/remove them from My tasks list, etc. Let's review all the possibilities you are given:


"Preview" button - opens SWF or Projector file in main player for preview. File is not added to My tasks list.

"Open" button - previews a file. Will also add it to My tasks list for futher processing.

"Add task" button - adds currently selected SWF/EXE file into My tasks list for management, conversion and extraction.
"Add folder" button contains:

  • add folder root - adds only files present in folder's root to My tasks list
  • add folder recursively - adds all files in the current directory to My tasks list recursively, including subfolders.

"Extract SWF objects" button - extracts all currently selected SWF resources.

"Convert SWF to FLA" button - converts currrently highlighted task from the tasks list.

"Take snapshot" button - takes a screenshot of currently played file/frame. By default the snapshot is placed into clipboard

  • copy to clipboard - taken snapshot will be copied to clipboard. Then you can paste it anywhere in graphic editor, document, etc
  • save on disk - taken snapshot will be saved to your hard drive. You will see a dialog to select the desired folder.

"Remove current task" button - removes current task from My tasks list.
"Clear my tasks" button - removes all tasks from My tasks list

More hints on managing SWF/EXE files for further processing can be found here.
 

2. "Extract" tab

Flash Decompiler endows you with the ability to export every single type of objects which the selected SWF/EXE files consist of into a separate file for further analysis. For instance, you may export sound objects from SWF file into .MP3 or .WAV formats, video to .AVI and so on.

Here you are able to select or write manually the destination folder to which all objects, selected in SWF/EXE files in My tasks list, will be extracted.

"Open destination folder after extraction" checkbox will enable opening the destination folder, where all extracted objects are located, automatically after extraction process.
"Extract SWF objects" button – starts the extraction of all currently selected SWF resources in My tasks list. Export path will be used as the place on your hard drive to store the objects in.

Moreover, this tab allows you to select the desired formats for objects, which will be extracted. Just click "Formats" sub-tab and you will see the following:

By browsing through all these menus you are able select the desired formats for every type of SWF objects. Besides you can reset all extraction formats to defaults, FLA or SWF by using "Reset to defaults" button.

Flash Decompiler Trillix allows you to extract images, sounds, video, shapes, morphs, fonts, texts, buttons, sprites, frames and scripts into various file formats. All the objects can be extracted separately into flash animation (SWF) and flash sources (FLA) file formats, except for scripts which can be saved to AS and TXT file formats. Let's review the list of possible objects and file formats, except mentioned above:

  • Images can be extracted into JPEG, PNG or BMP file formats
  • Sounds - WAV or MP3
  • Video - AVI, MPG and FLV
  • Texts - TXT, HTML, RTF

Here you are able to see extraction process step-by-step.

"Reset to defaults" button - resets all extraction formats to default values.

  • "Reset all formats to FLA" - sets all extraction formats except for ActionScript to FLA.
  • "Reset all formats to SWF" - sets all extraction formats except for ActionScript to SWF.
     

3. "Convert" tab

Flash Decompiler Trillix features unique option to convert your SWF files back into FLA. FLA format is Adobe Flash file format, which contains the original source code for SWF Flash movie, which, unlike the SWF format could be edited and modified in a native Flash environment (Adobe Flash). As the result you gain the full control of your SWF files.

Here you are able to select or write manually the destination folder ("conversion path" field), where the resulting FLA file will be stored.
Use "open file after conversion" checkbox if you want Flash Decompiler to open the resulting FLA in Adobe Flash immediately after conversion process.

"FLA versions" button - selects the version of FLA format to be created.

  • Autodetect. If you choose autodetection, then the minimal format, which supports all Flash file's features, will be used. E.g., if a file contains AS2, then at least MX 2004 will be chosen.
  • Macromedia Flash MX (v6)
  • Macromedia Flash MX 2004 (v7)
  • Macromedia Flash 8 (v8)
  • Adobe Flash CS3 (v9)
  • Adobe Flash CS4 (v10)

"Convert current" button enables you to start the conversion of currently highlighted file from My tasks list
"Convert all" button starts the conversion of all available tasks to FLA.
"Default settings" button resets to default conversion settings if you changed them.

You are able to change conversion settings by clicking corresponding sub-tabs: General and Text. Let's review both of them:

  • General

"Motion tweens" sub-tab allows you:

"Detect motion tweens" checkbox enables/disables motion tweening conversion. If this option is disabled, all of the settings below will be ignored. Motion tweening is a process of generating intermediate frames between two different images, producing transposition effect when the first image evolves smoothly into the second one.

"Movement smoothness" slider defines the algorithm's sensitivity and represents a deviation from imaginable motion trajectory in percents. It could highly affect the resulting movie quality: if you set smoothness value small enough, the motion tween may not be recognized at all, and, on the contrary, if smoothness is too high there may be flaws in resulting FLA file, where some objects will not follow the path correctly and produce quirky movements. This option is available if "Detect motion tweens" is enabled.

"Length factor" slider defines the deviation from calculated path with the distance factor. 



"ActionScript" sub-tab allows you:

"Decode all classes as dynamic" - This checkbox enables all AS 2.0 classes decoding as dynamic. Dynamic class makes possible to add properties and methods at runtime, while such action for non-dynamic class will lead to compilation error. The problem is that in a SWF file all classes are considered dynamic.

"Recover arguments' names" checkbox - Starting from Adobe Flash Player 6.0 in order to improve performance speed registers were added to ActionScript virtual machine structure. As the result, information about file variables' names is not available. To restore to variables and values binding (symbolic information) Flash Decompiler Trillix uses heuristic algorithm.

"Use getProperty/setProperty" - uses old-style syntax to object's properties (getProperty and setProperty built-in functions).

You may also change ActionScripts setting here.

 

"Morph options" button allows you:

  • "Place morphs into library" - this checkbox enables/disables placement of all morphs into a separate FLA library and timeline after decompilation. Being placed into the FLA library, the morph is converted into a movie clip, which contains the morph of the correct time length. If this option is not enabled, morph will be placed into the corresponding frame without adding it into the library.
     
  • "Advanced morph decompilation" - affects the morph conversion algorithm. Once disabled, Flash Decompiler will not take into a consideration that the resulting morph is 1 frame shorter than the original one. As the result, conversion will be quicker, however the quality will decrease significantly for the small morph. If you enable this option, then Flash Decompiler will fix the problem with length by placing morphs into separate layers. The exact mechanism for layer splitting is placed in "Separate layers for morphs" option.
     
  • "Separate layers for morphs" checkbox is available if you enable "Advanced morph decompilation". Basically, it tries to resolve the morphs length problem by placing each morph into separate layers. If you disable this options then the resulting morph will be 1 frame longer and the frame that comes behind the last morph's one is placed on separate layer. As the result, each morph is layered and FLA file may grow in size. By enabling this option, the resulting morph will be 1 frame longer as well, however second layer will only contain the data that prevents the morph from being prolonged. If you have problems with morphs in the resulting FLA file, please, try to enable/disable this option first.
     
  • "Create folder for morphs" checkbox - when "Advanced morph decompilation" option is on then you may group all layers for converted morphs into folder. Note, that by enabling this option the resulting FLA file may be distorted if morph layer is masked.

 

"Objects" sub-tab allows you:

"Place shapes into library" checkbox enables/disables grouping of all shapes into a separate folder instead of placing into the corresponding frame. Generally, it may be more convenient, especially, when a shape appears only 1 time.

"Decompile symbols not present at timeline" - defines whether the objects that are not placed on timeline should be decompiled. This option is useful if your SWF file contains ActionScript.

"Join masks layers" - checkbox defines whether the similar mask layers should be joined into a single one. If option is disabled, each layer will have a separate mask.

 

"Default settings" button resets to default conversion settings.

 

  • Text

"Static text bounding box expansion" - quite often when converting static text you may encounter the problem that resulting text is few pixels bigger than the original one. Adobe Flash doesn't insert "New Line" character automatically. As the result, text doesn't fit into the bounds and is slightly slid. "Static text bounding box expansion" slider simply extends bound box size on the number of twips you specify by this setting.

"Place text into library" checkbox allows converting texts as Symbol instead of placing them on Timeline.

"Convert static text into shapes" checkbox defines whether the static text in SWF file should be converted into shape. If you disable it then all static text will be directly converted into a FLA file as simple text. The advantage of this method is that you may easily edit this text later on. However, the possible problem which may arise with this method is if there is no character map for those characters. In this case you may see question marks instead of your text. As an alternative, you may convert static text into a shape which guarantees you that all texts will be present in FLA file in readable format but they will not be easy to edit.

"Force ANSI encoding" - if option is enabled Flash Decompiler attempts to use heuristic method to fix a bug in Adobe Flash MX (6.0 and above versions). Adobe claims that it uses text in Unicode-16 (2 bytes for a character) format, meantime Cyrillic text, for instance is represented as ISO 8859 code (8-bit per character), and, therefore, there could be some problems with text representation in resulting FLA file. This bug is applicable for Central European, East European and several other encodings.

"Default settings" button resets to default conversion settings.

For more hints on SWF to FLA conversion, please, refer to this section.
 

4. "Edit" tab allows you to change the way Flash files are created and edit them on the go without the need to recompile into FLA.

Let's review all the possibilities you are given:

Images - replaces original images in a SWF/EXE task. You can add JPEG and PNG images, edit their quality, transparency settings and size.

Sounds - replaces original sounds in a SWF/EXE task. You can add your own sounds instead of the original objects, alter sound format and quality.

Texts - replaces and edits texts currently present in SWF/EXE tasks.

Links- edits links found in a SWF/EXE task. Note, you'll be editing all the links in a task.

Colors - edits colors in SWF/EXE tasks. Opens a special panel where you can edit most of the colors you can see in a movie. Cannot edit raster images, etc.

Lines- edits lines a SWF/EXE task. Edits line thickness and color. Don't forget to select the desired shape if no lines are shown.

"Save" button - saves changes to current SWF file

"Save as ..." button - saves new SWF file with applied changes

"Discard changes" button - discards all changes which you applied and reverts to last saved file.

For step-by-step instructions on editing SWF files, please, see here.
 

5. "Search" category gives you the unique ability to search the necessary information in ActionScripts used in SWF/EXE files. Moreover you can change ActionScripts view to different representations for your convenience.

In "Search for" textfield you should write in text you want to find in ActionScripts.
"Logics" menu allows you to select whether exact match of text is found, all words or any word of text, which you specified in "Search for" textfield.

Besides you are able to configure some search options:

"Ignore case" checkbox - ignores text register, which you specified in "Search for" textfield.
"Whole words only" checkbox – Flash Decompiler will search whole words only for the text which you specified in "Search for" textfield.
Enable "Search only in current SWF" checkbox if you want Flash Decompiler to search in ActionScripts of one selected SWF file in My tasks list. If you disable this option, Flash Decompiler searches text in ActionScripts of all SWF files, which are located in My tasks list.

"Search now" button - starts searching in ActionScripts within SWF/EXE files.

Please, refer to how to search section if you want to see the exact examples of searching ActionScripts.