Enhancing rich symbols in Fireworks CS3

Extending rich symbols

A rich symbol is comprised of a PNG file and a JavaScript (.jsf) file. Using JavaScript (specifically, using the getObjectByName function) you can access almost all of the individual objects that make up the rich symbol. You can internally associate an object or its attributes with another object to build a relationship between them.

The ability to add code to the JavaScript file is very powerful because you can configure a rich symbol to interact with its parts. For example, whenever the attribute of one object is modified, the dependant object will also be modified automatically.

You can build these interdependencies as much as desired because you can establish one or more relationships, depending on the level of intelligence you wish to build into the rich symbols.

The following two JavaScript events are exposed by rich symbols in Fireworks CS3:

• setDefaultValues
• applyCurrentValues

To get a complete overview, read How rich symbols work in the Fireworks LiveDocs.

The next section describes how to update rich symbols into smart rich symbols using the provided sample files.

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