Flash

With a little ActionScript, you can create basic navigation via clickable buttons and hotspots. Learning more advanced ActionScript techniques gives you access to features such as creating a local shared object (colloquially known as a "Flash...

The Flash component framework has been upgraded to take advantage of class-based optimizations and new features in ActionScript 2.0, including strict datatyping. Flash MX Professional 2004's new Slides and Forms features (collectively call...

Flash has supported the ability to include external ActionScript (.as files) since Flash 5. In both Flash 5 and Flash MX, external ActionScript files could be included using the #include directive. In Flash MX 2004 and ActionScript 2.0, the...

Strict typing can help motion graphics developers spend less time debugging and more time being creative. ActionScript 2.0 introduces strict typing to detect datatype mismatches at compile time. Should you use strict typing if you're a m...

Flash MX introduced a code hints system in the Actions panel (F9). Code hints appear as a context-sensitive drop-down list that suggests relevant method names and property names appropriate to the current item's datatype. Flash MX used an ite...

In many situations, you will store values as properties of a single object, instead of as separate variables, because the first technique offers a cleaner, more structured approach. However objects are not always treated the same way as simpl...

I was asked to develop a Flash-based questionnaire application that ran on the screens on the backs of aircraft passenger seats. When the questionnaire was left idle, Flash should start playing some video. It should switch back quickly to the ...

Although Flash Player 7 performs faster than its predecessors, text and array processing can still take considerable time. When creating code that performs searches, it is typical to use a while or for loop. The trouble with repeated oper...

In animation applications, the timeline represents the passage of time. Flash generates an event (onEnterFrame) every time the next frame interval has started. That makes perfect sense until you start adding code into the mix. Unlike other sc...

Although the debugger (WindowDevelopment PanelsDebugger and ControlDebug Movie) is useful for real-time debugging, it is often easier to use the trace( ) action to display output in the Output panel. However, trace( ) accepts only one expre...

You'll often want to examine the properties of an object to achieve a larger goal. For example, you might want to list an object's property values in the Output panel for debugging purposes. Or you might want to decode the unknown properties ...

The Flash Player supports methods that are not exposed in the ActionScript API. That is, not only are some functions undocumented, they don't even have names! Instead, they are stored in a function table and accessed by indexing into that tab...

Although ActionScript is large, typical developers can solve 90% of their problems using 10% of the available features. The remaining ActionScript is used only rarely or for very specific purposes. Some ActionScript is used rarely because dev...

XML is a well-known format for sending and receiving data to and from the Flash Player. When you want to load a smaller amount of data (or unstructured data), the LoadVars class is another popular route. XML is common in web design and web-re...