Overview

Macromedia Flash MX ActionScripting: Advanced Training From the Source teaches readers ActionScript using a hands-on, project-based approach. This book will be different in several ways. Instead of just explaining how scripting works, explains scripting by translating real-life activities into scripts, so that users can begin to see the association of how programming and scripting is something they instinctively already know how to do. Readers will be shown many methodologies and techniques for building nearly thirty real-life Flash ActionScript projects, including sample games, wireless applications, Web sites, and more, enabling them to work faster and more efficiently. The companion CD-ROM contains all project files and images necessary for each project in the book.

• Macromedia Flash MX ActionScripting: Advanced Training from the Source
• By: Derek Franklin; Jobe Makar
• Publisher: Macromedia Press
• Pub. Date: April 24, 2002 Most Recent Edition
• Print ISBN-10: 0-201-77022-9
• Print ISBN-13: 978-0-201-77022-3
• Pages in Print Edition: 616

Details of Macromedia Flash MX ActionScripting: Advanced Training from the Source

Copyright
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CREDITS
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Introduction
Chapter 1. Introducing ActionScript

WHY LEARN ACTIONSCRIPT?

ACTIONSCRIPT ELEMENTS

THE PLANNING PROCESS

WRITING YOUR FIRST SCRIPT

TESTING YOUR FIRST SCRIPT

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 2. Using Event Handlers

WHAT EVENT HANDLERS DO

CHOOSING THE RIGHT EVENT HANDLER

USING MOUSE EVENTS

MAKING THE MOST OF ATTACHING MOUSE EVENTS TO MOVIE CLIPS

USING FRAME EVENTS

USING CLIP EVENTS

ORCHESTRATING MULTIPLE EVENTS

UNDERSTANDING EVENT HANDLER METHODS

USING EVENT HANDLER METHODS

USING ‘LISTENERS’

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 3. Understanding Target Paths

UNDERSTANDING MULTIPLE TIMELINES

TARGETING THE CURRENT MOVIE

TARGETING THE MAIN MOVIE

TARGETING A PARENT MOVIE

TARGETING MOVIE CLIP INSTANCES

TARGETING MOVIES ON LEVELS

TARGETING MOVIE CLIP INSTANCES ON LEVELS

UNDERSTANDING MULTIPLE IDENTITIES

CREATING AND REFERENCING GLOBAL ELEMENTS

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
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Chapter 4. Understanding and Using Objects
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WHAT OBJECTS ARE AND WHY THEY’RE USEFUL
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OBJECT TYPES
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USING THE COLOR OBJECT
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USING THE KEY OBJECT TO ADD INTERACTIVITY
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WORKING WITH STRING AND SELECTION OBJECTS
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WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 5. Using Functions

CREATING FUNCTIONS

ADDING PARAMETERS TO FUNCTIONS

USING LOCAL VARIABLES AND CREATING FUNCTIONS THAT RETURN RESULTS

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 6. Customizing Objects

UNDERSTANDING OBJECT MECHANICS

DEFINING A CUSTOM CLASS AND CREATING INSTANCES OF THAT CLASS

GENETICALLY PROGRAMMING AN OBJECT BY CUSTOMIZING ITS PROTOTYPE

INSTANCE-LEVEL PROPERTIES

CREATING SUBCLASSES

CREATING CUSTOM METHODS FOR CUSTOM CLASSES

WATCHING PROPERTIES

ENHANCING EXISTING OBJECT METHODS

DEFINING CUSTOM METHODS FOR PREBUILT OBJECTS

REGISTERING CLASSES

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 7. Using Dynamic Data

CREATING VARIABLES

CREATING ARRAYS

CREATING DYNAMIC TEXT FIELDS AND RETRIEVING INFORMATION

RETRIEVING THE DATA

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 8. Manipulating Data

DATA TYPES

BUILDING EXPRESSIONS

OPERATORS

MANIPULATING NUMERICAL DATA USING MATH

MANIPULATING STRINGS

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 9. Using Conditional Logic

CONTROLLING A SCRIPT’S FLOW

DETERMINING CONDITIONS

REACTING TO MULTIPLE CONDITIONS

DEFINING A BOUNDARY

TURNING POWER ON/OFF

REACTING TO USER INTERACTION

DETECTING COLLISIONS

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 10. Automating Scripts with Loops

WHY LOOPS ARE USED

TYPES OF LOOPS

WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING LOOP CONDITIONS

NESTED LOOPS

LOOP EXCEPTIONS

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 11. Getting Data In and Out of Flash

UNDERSTANDING DATA SOURCES AND DATA FORMATS

GET VS. POST

USING THE LOADVARS OBJECT

USING SHARED OBJECTS

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 12. Using XML with Flash

LEARNING XML BASICS

USING THE XML OBJECT

INTRODUCING SOCKET SERVERS

USING THE XMLSOCKET OBJECT

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 13. Validating and Formatting Data

THE LOGIC BEHIND VALIDATING DATA

USING VALIDATION ROUTINES

HANDLING ERRORS

VALIDATING STRINGS

VALIDATING SEQUENCES

VALIDATING AGAINST A LIST OF CHOICES

VALIDATING NUMBERS

DYNAMIC TEXT FORMATTING WITH HTML

CREATING AND CONTROLLING TEXT FIELDS WITH ACTIONSCRIPT

USING TEXTFORMAT OBJECTS

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 14. Controlling Movie Clips Dynamically

CREATING MOVIE CLIP INSTANCES DYNAMICALLY

USING ATTACHMOVIE()

BUILDING CONTINUOUS-FEEDBACK BUTTONS

USING ACTIONSCRIPT TO DYNAMICALLY DRAW LINES

USING THE DRAW METHODS

CREATING FILLED SHAPES DYNAMICALLY

Z-SORTING MOVIE CLIP INSTANCES

DRAGGING AND DROPPING MOVIE CLIP INSTANCES

REMOVING DYNAMICALLY CREATED CONTENT

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 15. Time- and Frame-Based Dynamism

THE USE OF TIME IN FLASH

DETERMINING CURRENT DATE AND TIME

DETERMINING THE PASSAGE OF TIME

CONTROLLING THE PLAYBACK SPEED AND DIRECTION OF A TIMELINE

TRACKING PLAYBACK AND DOWNLOADING PROGRESSION

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 16. Scripting for Sound

CONTROLLING SOUND WITH ACTIONSCRIPT

CREATING A SOUND OBJECT

DRAGGING A MOVIE CLIP INSTANCE WITHIN A BOUNDARY

CONTROLLING VOLUME

CONTROLLING PANNING

ATTACHING SOUNDS AND CONTROLLING SOUND PLAYBACK

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Chapter 17. Loading External Assets

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

THE INS AND OUTS OF LOADING EXTERNAL ASSETS

LOADING MOVIES INTO A TARGET

LOADING JPGS DYNAMICALLY

CREATING AN INTERACTIVE PLACEHOLDER

LOADING MOVIES INTO A LEVEL

CONTROLLING A MOVIE ON A LEVEL

LOADING MP3S DYNAMICALLY

REACTING TO DYNAMICALLY LOADED MP3S

WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED
Appendix A. Resources

derekfranklin.com

electrotank.com

Flashkit

We’re Here

Ultrashock

PocketpcFlash.Net

MotionCulture

Moock.org
Customers Reviews From Amazon

I’ve bought several books on Actionscripting, including several from Friends Of Ed. Most of them are confusing and poorly edited, riddled with grammar and spelling errors and have you hand-typing pages and pages of code without proper explanation.

However, this isn’t the case with FLASH MX ADVANCED by Derek Franklin and Jobe Makar. Each lesson clearly explains what you are doing and why. First they explain in correct English what we want the code to do, then they show us in bright, bold blue font how it translates into Actionscripting. The tutorials included on the CD guide you through each lesson step by step, explaning the code as you go along.

There are several very practical applications that you could modify and apply for your own use. This book has some great tricks on loading dynamic mp3′s and adjusting the volume on dynamically loaded sounds. It also guides you through several other new features to FlashMX.

I was afraid of Actionscripting until I purchased this book. Leafing through the pages, this book held my hand as I experienced the most advanced scripting I have ever done. This book is for you if you are an avid flash user that has been using Flash for 2 years or so but haven’t really caught on to all the extra Actionscripting that ships with each new version.
I highly recommend this book above all other FlashMX books out there on actionscripting….

This book is extremely well written, no ‘welcome to your comp-oo-tar’ aproach, while remaining easy to understand and moving through the content at a good pace. Abundant tutorials and files acompany the book on the cd and each code snippet in the book is broken down in depth to let you know what each line means. I’ve been avoiding actionscript for years and this book has made it childsplay.