Chapter 51: c-level extensibility, About extensibility, Integrating c functions – Adobe Extending Flash Professional CS5 User Manual
Page 550: C-level extensibility
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Last updated 5/2/2011
Chapter 51: C-Level Extensibility
This chapter describes the C-level extensibility mechanism, which lets you implement Adobe Flash CS4 Professional
extensibility files using a combination of JavaScript and custom C code. No changes to the mechanism have been
introduced in this release of Flash.
About extensibility
To implement extensibility, you define functions using C, bundle them in a dynamic linked library (DLL) or a shared
library, save the library in the appropriate directory, and then call the functions from JavaScript using the Adobe Flash
JavaScript API.
For example, you might want to define a function that performs intense calculations more efficiently than JavaScript
does, which improves performance, or when you want to create more advanced tools or effects.
This extensibility mechanism is a subset of the Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 API. If you are familiar with that API, you
might recognize the functions in the C-level extensibility mechanism API. However, this API differs from the
Dreamweaver API in the following ways:
•
This API does not contain all the commands in the Dreamweaver API.
•
All declarations of type
wchar_t
and
char
in the Dreamweaver API are implemented as
unsigned short
declarations in this API, to support Unicode when strings are passed.
•
function in this API is not part of the Dreamweaver API.
•
The location in which the DLL or shared library files must be stored is different (see “
page 528).
Integrating C functions
The C-level extensibility mechanism lets you implement Flash extensibility files using a combination of JavaScript and
C code. The process for implementing this capability is summarized in the following steps:
1 Define functions using the C or C++ language.
2 Bundle them in a DLL file (Windows) or a shared library (Macintosh).
3 Save the DLL file or library in the appropriate location:
•
Windows 7:
boot drive\Users\username\AppData\Adobe\Flash CS5 or CS5.5\language\Configuration\External Libraries
•
Windows Vista:
boot drive\Users\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Flash CS5 or
CS5.5\language\Configuration\External Libraries
•
Windows XP:
boot drive\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\Flash CS5 or
CS5.5\language\Configuration\External Libraries