[Scotia Systems]

Hi,

Has anyone had any experience decompiling Flash? I have a potential client who would like their flash site updating, however I suspect that they don't have the original .fla source? Also looks like their exisiting designer is no longer in business - so I think decompiling is my only option?

Thanks!

Nick

[socreative]

Scotia Systems, on 06 July 2009 - 06:27 PM, said:

Hi,

Has anyone had any experience decompiling Flash? I have a potential client who would like their flash site updating, however I suspect that they don't have the original .fla source? Also looks like their exisiting designer is no longer in business - so I think decompiling is my only option?

Thanks!

Nick

sorry to dissapoint you mate but even if you decompile the swf file you will only get actions, and also they'll not look exactly like they did in the original FLA anyway. You will be able to export the graphic elements and sounds. You will probably be ably to replace a fre words of text but to make significant changes you will have to recreate the FLA yourself.

[skidz]

You could try sothink swf decompiler

[Acuity]

as said above swf decompiler will do the job your after

[socreative]

Acuity, on 10 July 2009 - 02:53 AM, said:

as said above swf decompiler will do the job your after

no it wont

for any major changes he will need to recreate the FLA

[skidz]

socreative, on 10 July 2009 - 10:17 AM, said:

no it wont

for any major changes he will need to recreate the FLA

Depends on what exactly he wants to do. Sothink SWF decompiler will allow him to extract the swf giving him the actions and assets. My guess is that Sothink SWF decompiler will do exactly what he wants.

SWF Decompiler Features said:

*
Decompile SWF to FLA. New
*
Decompile SWF to FLEX project, and get
MXML file and other project files. New
* Decompile the standard EXE made by Adobe Flash to FLA format.
* Support Flash 6, Flash MX 2004 (V7), Flash 8, Flash CS3 (V9) and Flash CS4 (V10). New
* Compatible with ActionScript 2 and ActionScript 3.
* Export SWF to FLA/SWF to FLEX projects, and extract resources in batch mode.
* Support exporting the resources to SWF or FLA format.
* Extract element into various formats, including shapes, sounds, images, sprites, fonts, texts, ActionScript, etc.
* Export ActionScript file in AS, BIN or HTML format.
* Export the video file in FLV format from Flash movie.
* Multi-Language interface is available, English, German, simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese included. New
SWF Decompiler

* Capture Flash movie online from IE or Firefox by SWF Catcher, and save SWF movies into local disk.
* Extract the resources of SWF movie in various formats.
* Support Flash components.
* Provide a user-friendly interface (like Office 2007).
* Navigate and browse resources in preview window before Flash decompiling.
* Invoke Flash SWF from User-friendly Explorer-like Windows.
* Offer built-in player to play SWF on hard drive or network.
* Take a snapshot to file or clipboard for playing Flash movie in preview window.
* Supply the playback control bar to play, stop, forward, backward; zoom in/out Flash movie freely.
* View detailed properties of elements in Flash movies.
* Display ActionScript in Resources Panel for better. When decompiling AS3.0, support showing AS Class structure like folder-tree according to its path in package.
* Scan your IE cache and list all Flash files you have viewed.

[socreative]

skidz, on 10 July 2009 - 10:36 AM, said:

Depends on what exactly he wants to do. Sothink SWF decompiler will allow him to extract the swf giving him the actions and assets. My guess is that Sothink SWF decompiler will do exactly what he wants.

I hope so .. otherwise he's gonna face a long and painful rebuild of someone else's work

[skidz]

socreative, on 10 July 2009 - 11:00 AM, said:

I hope so .. otherwise he's gonna face a long and painful rebuild of someone else's work

Which is always going to be a guelling task

[FizixRichard]

You can try sothink; what it will do is decompile the SWF to an FLA with assets and ActionScript; however the Actionscript will NOT be the original AS but sothinks interpretation of it; at least in the decompiles I've done with it.

If I try deompiling the sites I've created in flash using sothink, some if not most of the the actionscript code isn't the code I created, it also has fluff in it, the timeline isn't perfect, the library is disorganised (my naming conventions are removed) and some of the assets are rasterised although they were originally vectors.

What Sothink is good for is checking how people did certain things; but even then its not necessarilly the original code.

Clients should always get source for flash projects for just this reason; and keep the source safe.