Gordon Flash Decompiler

Special app? What's so "special" about it? It does it's job just like any other program. With that logic, you could say that you need a "special" app like Firefox or IE to see how somebody made web page.

Yes, Bryan, it is different. You don't need a special app to "break open" the files you listed in order to read their contents.

Reverse engineering is not only a highly versatile and useful technical skill, but it is also an excellent learning tool. Some of the best coders I know learned not from books, but from taking apart other peoples' programs, finding out how they tick, and poking at them, changing this and that to see what happens.

Brent, is this really that different from seeing how someone did something in HTML, JavaScript, or CSS? I don't think so...

Although intended for guys interested in reverse engineering and understanding how something was done, this tool can be *very* helpful to cheat on contests ... Together with Ethereal, this app will get very handy figuring out how to pass score data to a web-server.

indeed there are those of us who actually do use this software for legitimate reasons.

we often require obscure brand logos which clients tell us to "get from the website" these turn out to be lo res gifs. If the logo is in flash then I rip it out and export it as a vector. That's my commonest use.

This week for example, I've had to update a menu on a restaurant site which had been done by some1 else who the client had lost touch with and they didn't have the .flas available.

South -

Odd? How? By defending the right of original ownership to someone's work? Frankly, it's a bit disturbing you might find such a concept as "odd." What else would you consider taking without permission?

If you'd like to learn how something is done in a Flash movie, ask the author for their file. Most are perfectly willing to share - if not the file, than the appropriate section of code/art. Chances are, there's nothing being done that hasn't already been posted at a community site. Or check project-oriented books with collections of work by the designers themselves - New Masters of Flash (Friends of Ed publishing), for instance. Frequently, these come with CD's full of .fla's, so you can learn that much easier.

Apps like this disgust me, as they do most creative people. The purpose they serve is singular: to plunder the ideas of another artist - not to "retrieve corrupted files" or some other nonsense. This is morally reprehensible to most, but with some it seems to be the norm.

Try consent. It's a good thing.

Granted, it was a little over-the-top to convict many for the infractions of a few, so let that take some sting out of my zing. I'll give the ones I don't know the benefit of the doubt.

odd comment there, Brent -- for those of us learning flash it's far more useful to study others' examples than trying to learn from a book (which i've given up on doing, many times). most mac users i know are highly creative and original, and could do so much more with some extra skills.

Ah, these sound like some other Mac users I know. Giddy at the possibility of lifting someone else's work in hopes of claiming it as their own.

And please, don't give me the "But I lost my .fla!!!" excuse.

Four poachers and counting...

ah brilliant, as with the 1st comment, I too am used to sothink's offering on the pc and as we're goin to switch to macs at work, i am looking for alternatives to the little apps i use on windows...

now if only the flash timeline is redone by adobe to support the mousewheel.