ActionScript: Your visual blueprint for creating interactive projects in Flash CS4 Professional uses clear, descriptive examples to show you how to use the ActionScript language to add interactivity to your Flash projects. If you are already familiar with ActionScript, you can use this book as a quick reference for many scripting tasks.
This book is for the experienced computer user who wants to find out more about ActionScript. It is also for more experienced ActionScript users who want to expand their knowledge of the different features that ActionScript has to offer.
ActionScript: Your visual blueprint for creating interactive projects in Flash CS4 Professional has 20 chapters and 3 appendixes.
Chapter 1, "Introducing ActionScript," explains the basic workings of Flash CS4 Professional and Flash Player. It then gets you started in creating new projects and opening the Actions panel, in which you will be writing your code.
Chapter 2, "Introducing the Basic Syntax of ActionScript," shows how to create variables, work with strings, create and work with arrays and generic objects, add constants and comments to your code, and test your movie.
Chapter 3, "Controlling Objects on the Stage," shows how you can use ActionScript to manipulate MovieClips and buttons that you draw in Flash.
Chapter 4, "Working with Nonvisual Classes," introduces the Math and Date classes in ActionScript and demonstrates how to use them to perform tasks such as generating random numbers and calculating time between dates.
Chapter 5, "Writing Functions," shows how to write and call functions, how to pass arguments to functions, and how to return values from them.
Chapter 6, "Creating Custom Classes," shows how you can create your own classes to organize your code. It shows how to create packages and class files, define class properties and methods, create constructors, and use getters and setters. It also shows how to use a custom class automatically in projects.
Chapter 7, "Using Events," covers the ActionScript event model. You will learn how to add and remove event listeners, call events, define events within custom classes, and use event targets.
Chapter 8, "Controlling the Timeline in Code," shows how to start and stop movies, start and stop MovieClips, work with the display list, and add sprites and MovieClips through code.
Chapter 9, "Working with Text," covers the use of text fields in ActionScript. You will learn how to create dynamic and input text fields, both visually and through code, and how to capture and process the text entered by users.
Chapter 10, "Formatting Text," shows how to use the TextFormat object to apply formatting to dynamic and input text fields.
Chapter 11, "Making Decisions in Code," covers the use of conditional statements, including if, if/else, if/else if, and switch.
Chapter 12, "Looping over Code," shows how to use for and while loops to execute blocks of code repeatedly.
Chapter 13, "Animating in Code," teaches how to use the EnterFrame and Timer events to make objects move. This chapter also shows how to add easing, allow users to drag and drop items, and animate in 3D.
Chapter 14, "Adding Keyboard Controls," shows how you can have your code capture keyboard input from your users.
Chapter 15, "Working with Sound," shows how to add sound and music files to your movie and use ActionScript to control the sound.
Chapter 16, "Working with Video," covers the process of encoding video for Flash, adding it to your movies, and using ActionScript to control it and to add closed captioning.
Chapter 17, "Working with Data," shows how you can use ActionScript to read, write, and load XML data into your movies.
Chapter 18, "Exchanging Data with a Server," teaches how to download and install the software necessary to set up a local testing server using either PHP or Adobe ColdFusion, how to create XML files in either language, and how to use ActionScript to read server-based data and use it in Flash movies.
Chapter 19, "Drawing Vectors in Code," shows how to use ActionScript to draw shapes and add solid and gradient fills, entirely through code.
Chapter 20, "Working with AIR," covers the Adobe Integrated Runtime and shows how you can create standalone desktop applications in Flash.
Appendix A, "ActionScript Class Reference," contains a complete reference of the classes built into the ActionScript language that are applicable to Flash.
Appendix B, "ActionScript Operators," shows the operators that can be used in ActionScript expressions.
Appendix C, "Supported HTML Tags," shows the tags from HTML that can be used to format text fields.
In order to complete the steps in this book, you will need a copy of Flash CS4 Professional. It can be purchased individually or as part of one of the Creative Suite 4 editions. You can also download a 30-day trial of Flash at www.adobe.com/products/flash.
The minimum recommended system requirements for Flash CS4 Professional in Windows are as follows:
The minimum recommended requirements for Flash CS4 Professional on the Macintosh are as follows:
In addition, some of the tasks in the book use Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, which is also available separately or as part of the Creative Suite packages. A 30-day trial of Dreamweaver is available at www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver.
To complete the steps in Chapter 18, you will need an active Internet connection in order to download the required software, and you will need administrative privileges on your computer to install the programs. Detailed instructions on downloading and installing the files are contained in the chapter.
A number of styles have been used throughout ActionScript: Your visual blueprint for creating interactive projects in Flash CS4 Professional to designate different types of information.
Courier Font
Indicates the use of ActionScript code such as tags or attributes, scripting language code such as statements, operators, or functions, and code such as objects, methods, or properties.
Bold
Indicates information that you must type.
Italics
Indicates a new term.
An Apply It section takes the code from the preceding task one step further. Apply It sections allow you to take full advantage of ActionScript code.
The accompanying Web site contains the sample files for the book that you can use to work with ActionScript: Your visual blueprint for creating interactive projects in Flash CS4 Professional. Go to www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470481943.html and click Downloads.
Flash CS4 Professional has been designed by Adobe to work, as much as possible, the same on both Macintosh and Windows-based machines. The only differences between the two are those related to the operating system itself — for example, the File Open and Save As dialog boxes. All Flash movies in Flash Player and all projects in AIR run in precisely the same way on both operating systems, so there is no difference in the code that you need to write. With only minor exceptions, all the screenshots in the book were taken on a computer running Windows Vista, but the differences between Vista and older versions of Windows and between Vista and Macintosh, with regards to what is shown in the book, are so minor that they should not present any problems.