Macromedia Studio MX Bible

Being able to debug your movie while it's live on the server is new to Flash MX. You can debug movie variables, which communicate to and from a server to insure that the information is being exchanged properly. To use this feature, you need to enable remote debugging and then activate it from a remote location. To enable remote debugging, follow these steps:

1. In Flash, choose File ® Publish Settings.

2. Click the Flash tab (Figure 30-2).

   Figure 30-2: The Flash tab of the Publish Settings dialog box

3. Check the Debugging Permitted option.

4. Enter password information if you want users to have to enter a password to use this feature.

5. Click the Publish button. This produces a file with an .swd extension. This file is needed to perform remote debugging.

6. When you are done, click OK.

7. Upload the .SWD file, SWF file/s, and HTML to your server. The SWD and SWF files need to be in the same directory.

8. Before debugging, open Flash and press Shift+F4 to open the Debugger.

9. From the Debugging Options pop-up menu, select Enable Remote Debugging.

To activate remote debugging, follow these steps:

1. Use a browser or the stand-alone Flash player to open your movie from the remote location by entering its URL.

2. In the Remote Debugging dialog box, choose one of the following:

   • Select Localhost if the debug player and Flash MX are on the same machine.

   • Select Other Machine if the debug player and Flash MX are on different machines. Enter the IP address of the machine running Flash MX.

3. Click OK.

4. Enter password information if needed.

5. Click OK. The Debugger is activated.