How to Create a Scrolling Text Box in Flash 8

Scroll through text with Flash.

Flash is a powerful Web-authoring tool used all over the Web. Because Flash is user-interactive, it is often used for games. However, recently using Flash for displaying content has become more popular, and more and more sites are made purely with Flash. One of the most common ways to display text content is with a text box, so knowing how to scroll text is invaluable for any Flash developer.

Instructions

1. In Flash, hit the "T" key on your your keyboard to select the Text tool. Click and drag on the Stage to create a text box.

2. In the Properties window, click "Static Text" and select "Dynamic Text" from the drop-down menu. In the "Instance Name" box, type "textbox" (without the quotes).

3. Hit "V" on your keyboard to enable the "Selection Tool," then right-click the Text Box on the stage, and select "Scrollable" from the drop-down menu.

4. Hit "T" on your keyboard to select the "Text Tool" and type more text than the text-box can hold, so that when you add the scroll bar, you'll have something to scroll.

5. In the Components window, click and drag the "UIScrollBar" component onto the text box on the Stage.

6. Hit "V" on the keyboard to enable the "Selection Tool," then select the UIScrollBar on the Stage. In the "Component Inspector" window, change the value of "_targetInstanceName" from "InstanceName_0" to "textbox" (without the quotes).

7. Click "Control" > "Test Movie" to test your movie. You will see a text box with a scroll bar on the side. Click and drag the scroll bar to scroll the text box up or down and see more of the text.

References

• KnowFlash Resources: Scrolling Text using a UIScrollBar