Flash Speaks Actionscript

The community’s cry for a simple guide that would quickly go over some of the most felt changes from AS2 to AS3 has been heard.  Adobe has recently added a new resource to the ActionScript Center called the ActionScript 3 Migration Cookbook.

There you will find a quick introduction to migrating to ActionScript 3.0 from ActionScript 2.0.  It is targeted at designers and developers who have some experience scripting content within Adobe Flash CS4 Professional. It does not require an understanding of object-oriented programming.

Along with this resource of common AS2 code into AS3 conversions is a a downloadable PDF version which basically takes this section of the Devent site and dumps it into a portable version. Overall, this is a nice guide that can provide that helping hand during the first stages of the migration over to AS3.

Download the ActionScript 3 migration cookbook

With the growth of intense Flash applications that handle sensitive data like user names, passwords, account data, etc, HP looks to increase awareness of common security vulnerabilities that can be found in today’s Flash applications.  Earlier this week, HP announced the release of its security tool called HP SWFScan.

What is HP SWFScan?

HP SWFScan is a free security tool for Windows that helps developers find security vulnerabilities in applications developed with the Adobe Flash Platform.  SWFScan helps you find, fix, and prevent security vulnerabilities in your SWF applications and deliver more secure code without having to become a security expert.

How does it work?

SWFScan will decompile the targeted SWF file and analyze the source code to see if it can target any potential security vulnerabilities.  It will also perform a static analysis to understand their behaviors as this will help identify vulnerabilities that lie under the surface of an application and are not otherwise detectable with traditional dynamic methods.

If you’ve ever used a SWF decompiler, then the interface of this application will feel right at home.  If you are interested in learning more on SWFScan check the article on Adobe Developer Center.

Download HP SWFScan

Have you ever wanted to integrate a rich text editor into your Flash projects?  AS3 TextEditor Lite is a SWC based component for rich text editor which can be used in Flash applications to be developed using ActionScript 3.0 and Adobe Flash CS3 IDE.

This component provides features like:

• Dynamically attach it to any text field of your application
• Complete WYSIWYG Editor
• Formatting of characters as Bold, Italic, Underline
• Hyperlink with color, underline options
• Search and replace texts
• Indent, Margin (left and right)
• Paragraph alignment left, right,center,justified
• Making unordered lists
• Line spacing, Character spacing
• Adding Image (No Edit)

Results are in

Earlier last month Keith Peters revealed the final 12 contestants from the November/December 25 line contest.  If you haven’t heard the results are in and the winner is a fellow named Marius.   Marius created a platform game rendered in ASCII in a Flash text field with a custom copy/paste engine.

25 Line Contest Winner: Game Rendered in ASCI

Source code is available

If you are curious on how these 25 liners were created, Keith recently posted the source code to all 80+ files.  Definitely worth downloaded as you might be surprised on how some of these 25 liners were created.

January’s 25 Line Contest Begins

If  you are interested in this month’s 25 line contest, it has started and there is still a first place prize of an Adobe CS4 Suite.  Visit 25lines for more details.

Actually the title of this post is only the half of it, Jeff Tranberry over at Adobe just built a new set of Photoshop scripts for Airtight Interactive’s SimpleViewer, TiltViewer, AutoViewer and PostcardViewer.   These scripts allow you to easily create Airtight galleries with Photoshop CS3+. Just select your image folder and gallery options to instantly create a gallery.  How easy is that!

If you haven’t already used or demoed these Flash image galleries, then you should definitely do so right now.

Download The Extension

• Download the Airtight Photoshop CS3 scripts here.
• Download the Airtight Photoshop CS4 scripts installer here.

At the beginning of the month, Lee Brimelow released a new video series he calls Flasher Magazine.  He is now sharing the video player he uses on the site to the community.  It’s a nice piece of work.  However, keep it mind that the “Flasher Player” was not meant to be feature rich.  I guess we can’t be too picky, its free.

If you’re interested, head over to Lee Brimelow’s blog and grab it.

As many have come to know, Kuler is a great color theme-sharing tool released by Adobe. It started out as a web-based application that enabled users to create, save, and download community-created color themes.   This community wave led to the creation of many Kuler tools like: Mac OS X Dashboard widget, Kuler Desktop, and now comes the Kuler Panel.

Integrating Kuler Within Flash CS3/4

Ben Pritchard’s contribution to the Flash community is the Kuler Panel for Flash CS3/4.  Integrating the Kuler panel with Flash is as simple as installing the Flash extension.   Access all of the community-created color themes or harmonies directly right through Flash.

With the release of Flash CS4, Adobe has integrated its own version of a Kuler panel.  Installing this version of the Kuler Panel will not effect the built in panel and infact they can be used together.  Kuler users will find these tools very handy.

Curious…

If you are as cusious as I was to see how Ben built this panel check out his article on Adobe Developer’s Connection.

Additional Resources:

• Download Kuler panel for Flash CS3
• Demo of the Kuler panel in action