I was wondering of there's a way to control the FLASH player (if playing back a
..swf directly from the harddrive) with Actionscript, so that
1) the movie opens and plays in "full screen" mode automatically
2) the application can "quit" on button-click (= the equivalent of the user
hitting the esc key on the keyboard).

Can I do that? Is there a way to communicate to the actual "Player"
application in this way? Help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...

yes - this is exactly what you are doing any time you write a script -
controlling the "player". to implement both of the items above your can use
the fscommand methods -

1) fscommand("fullscreen", true);
2) fscommand("quit");

place #1 on the first frame of your document, and #2 within a standard button
handler.

Ahhhh, this is perfect! Works like a charm. Thanks a lot, I appreciate it!

np - you're welcome