I wanted to edit a swf file (commonly known as Macromedia’s Flash application files). In particular I wanted to add subtitles to a file I have only the swf format of, and I didn’t want to buy software to do that. Also I am a Flash DAU, and there’s no need to change that anytime soon. So I searched for a painless way to do the task.
1. Getting the swf. That was easy.
2. Add subtitles. First question: how can swf’s be edited?
Kinesis Software offers KineticFusion, which converts swf to the proprietary rvml xml format and back. I tested the Developer 3.1.0 Beta 3 version of the software, and didn’t find a graphical interface to manipulate the content of the clip. So I was stuck with an xml file with 200k lines of code.
The Laszlo plugin for Eclipse seems to be very good (see www.cooqy.com what one can do with it), but it doesn’t seem to be able to convert swf to its lzx format for editing.
Version 0.2.1. of f4l, an open source development kit for flash, I couldn’t get to compile up to now.
swftools offer basic converting capabilities.
Is there nothing but Macromedia Flash Pro??