A: Open the .fla with flash. Now depending on the use (dynamic or manual) do the following;
• If you have drag&drop-ed the component on stage, open the Component Inspector and change the first parameter (the text to display)
• If you generate a dynamic instance by addChild, set the instance parameter showtext by actionscript

A: If you want to change or create letters, you'll have to modify or create the array which defines which letter is made out of which blocks. In the example below it explains how to create letters ñ and Ñ

In the folder com/patrickjansendesign/pixelblocktextpro/ you will find file blocktext2.as That file contains the variable declarations and array definitions of each letter. Basically it defines which letter contains which blocks in the 10×6 grid.

Easiest is to copy-paste the characters from the ones without accents (“n” and “N”) and then adjust those clones to your needs. In short you’ll need to do these steps:

1) first declare ‘public var boxes_Ñ:Array’ and ‘public var boxes_ñ:Array’

2) copy-paste the actionscript lines from the ones without special accents so you can adjust them, look for line

boxes_N = new Array( ... etc

change it to

boxes_Ñ = new Array( ... etc

and repeat this for letter ñ

3) now that you have a clone of those 2 letters, you only need to insert the “block values” for the top-accents into these new arrays. Just fyi: the base rows are 1 to 10 and columns 1 to 6, that’s for letters without accents. For special accents I added row 11 and 12 below and row 13 and 14 above. So if you add these values into the arrays you cloned you get the ~ above the letter N and n. You can insert them at then end of the arrays, doesn’t really matter where you insert the blocks in the arrays.

,”box13_2”,”box13_3”,”box13_5”,”box14_1”,”box14_4”

A: The letters are not "real" letters. They are created from predefined arrays creating a combination of blocks/pixels for each "letter". If you need a specific letter, you'll need to create a new array value for it which defines which blocks form that specific "letter". If you need help with that, use the contact form to request the creation of a specific "letter" so we can send you a new array definition to include in the .as file.

A: If you generate an instance of the component by ActionScript you can set variable/parameter [showdur], which in the Component Inspector is represented with "Show (readable) duration", to an infinite number like 99999999999 by actionscript

A: The file gen.as contains a line of code checking the progress of animation by counter variable "i". There is one line of code which detects the end of the animation (when "i" is larger then all the part-durations maximums together), you can use/reuse this method to add your own actions. Look for lines

if(i == myParent.maxdur1in*2 + myParent.maxdur2in*2 + myParent.showdur 
    + myParent.maxdur1out*2 + myParent.maxdur2out*2){
   stage.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, dononstop);
}

A: Follow the instructions as explained in Library MovieClip "dynamic use actionscript". In short, copy layer 'functions' from that MC to the main timeline. Then copy the 2 lines choosing default and override values, for example for sample 1 in main timeline change script to

function addtext(){
	demo = new blocktext3();
	addChildAt(demo,2);
	demo.x = Xpos + YposRES;
	demo.y = Ypos + YposRES;
	adddefaultparameters();
	addoverrideparameters1();
}

A: To prevent extreme CPU burdon the input text field in the custom UI has only 10 characters. If you dynamically create the instances of the component then there's no restriction. The restriction is merely to prevent beginning users creating very large texts which can make the animation slow. You can always use the contact form to request a version without the 10 character restriction.

A: No. The letters are not 'real' fonts, not TTF or postscript font files. They are merely collections of arrays which define the visibile blocks/balls within a 14x6 grid. You can define any shape within this 14x6 grid and create a 'letter' value for it so you can make your own 'shapes/characters' to be used in the text.

A: No. In the older readme file it mensions the AS files used by the AS3 version (included in ZIP in AS3 full version). In the AS2 version the scripts are keyframe internal and you can ignore that reference.