Hacking the Start Page

I’m not saying you SHOULD do this, but the fact that you can is pretty neat. The Start Page that you see when you first open Flash MX 2004 is simply a swf. It uses loadMovie to load in other data which is how it can tell you there is new help content or an updater, etc.
This swf is located in your configuration directory in the Start Page directory, named simply enough, “StartPage.swf”. Rename that swf (I strongly suggest you don’t overwrite or delete it!) and create another one with the same name in that directory. Bingo, a custom start page.
Interesting trick, maybe. But it could possibly have some potential. The important thing is that this swf is running in the authoring environment, and can therefore make use of MMExecute and JSFL! Wow, even as I’m writing this, I’m seeing some very interesting possibilities here! I may put together a few examples and post them later.