I recently found that if you simply set the Flash movie's Direct to Stage property to false, the movie will flicker between being in front and not being in front. Similarly, if you only set the Direct To Screen property of the Sprite icon to false, the icon will flicker.

The trick seems to be setting the icon to not be Direct to Screen and then setting the movie contained in the icon to not be Direct to Stage. If you set the properties in that order, the Flash file fades gracefully into the background without flickering.

For example, the code to allow other icons temporarily to layer on top of a Flash sprite might look like this:

CallSprite(@FlashID, #stop)
DirectToScreen@FlashID := FALSE
SetIconProperty(@FlashID, #directToStage, FALSE)

Authorware now has its own Exchange. It seems to be completely empty right now, but with our help it could become a valuable resource for the community.

I expect to be extremely busy next weekend, so there will likely not be a Tip next week.

No man is an island, and it's much easier to learn Authorware if you take advantage of the example files and information others have created and posted.

Some of my favorite Authorware sites are Steve Howard's Blog spot, Barbara Brown's Aware Goodies, Erik Lord's Aware Tips, the Aware List, and the Aware web ring.