A series of helpful Flash tutorials to get you feeling comfortable using Actionscript 3.0.

Getting Started with Understanding Paths Within AS3

As a Actionscript 2.0 programmer, one of the first hurdles to overcome when first using Actionscript 3.0 was _parent and _root. They’ve respectively changed to parent and root and they don’t entirely work as intended.

Currently, using parent the way it was used in Actionscript 2.0 will produce a compiler error as Actionscript 3.0 is a bit pickier about moving up paths. It uses class inheritance instead of the old prototype inheritance. It was designed to dispatch events, use listeners, pass variable that point to objects, all that other good stuff. However, that is not necessarily for everyone especially if you simply use Flash as an animation tool.

Here is a simple fix I learned from Bryan Grezeszak and it doesn’t involve complex event dispatching. Simply create a variable that stores the parent path and use that instead. By doing so, you are compromising the language and avoid getting wrapped up in a complete workaround only to find more bugs and errors.
// declare a variable that is parent
var newParent = parent;
// apply that instead of just using the command parent itself
newParent.gotoAndStop(2);
I tried this and it works like a charm and you can apply the same thing to root.

If you found this post useful, I would love to hear from you. All suggestions are welcomed.

Craig Campbell just created a new Flash/XML music player. The design is loosely based on the old school iPod. The player is very easy to update using the supplied XML file that points directly to all you necessary files. For those of you hoping that this is built in AS3, sorry it is not. However, it is still a nice music player.

Here is the Flash/XML music player created by Craig Campbell.

Original source files:
jukebox.zip

Source: Craig Campbell’s Flash Blog

The internet is clouded with many online picture galleries using Adobe Flash and the Flickr API. Some of these are even free and some you can get for a small price, however, many of these are very predictable, repetitive and don’t offer expandability like XML support.

I came across this free, customizable 3D Flash image viewing application, called TiltViewer and I am excited about its features. This Flickr Online Picture Gallery displays your pictures in a very creative manner and indicates the popularity of 3D in the Adobe Flash environment. The online gallery tool is built in Flash and even supports XML for a personal library along with a Flickr account. Simply the interaction between the user and the gallery is worth giving this online gallery tool a try.

Below is a video showing the off this innovative online picture gallery:

Here are the controls so you can give it test run

Mouse

• Click images to zoom-in, click again to zoom-out.
• Click the background to zoom-out.
• Click the ‘reload’ button (below the image grid) to load a new set of images.
• Click the ‘flip’ button (bottom-right of a zoomed-in image) to see image details.

Keyboard

• Cursor keys to navigate between images.
• Space-bar to zoom in/out.
• ‘F’ key to flip an image (when zoomed in).

Right-Click Menu

• Go Fullscreen. Opens
  TiltViewer in fullscreen mode. Right-click and select ‘Exit Fullscreen’
  to revert to regular mode. Note keyboard navigation does not work in
  full-screen mode.

Have you been looking for a reliable open-source ActionScript 3.0 Physics Engine? Good news! I came across a list of four popular ActionScript 3.0 Physics Engines provided by Henry Jones. The four engines listed are The Fisix Engine, ActionScript Physics Engine, FOAM, and Box2DFlashAS3.

Each ActionScript 3.0 Physics Engine listed has its pros and cons, but one thing for sure is that the use of Actionscript 3.0 provides an increase in performance versus Actionscript 2.0. Whether your heavy into creating flash games and looking for the believable physics or simply looking for a new thing to get into, this is a great list to keep in mind.

Looking to get the most out of the new filters in Flash Professional 8. In today’s tip, you’ll learn how to use the “blur” filter to create some very realistic clouds, and then you’ll learn how to animate those clouds in Flash. The great thing about this tutorial is not only that it is easy, but you don’t necessarily have to be a great artist to accomplish this effect.

via LearnFlash

Below is an example of the expected results:

Have you ever wanted to convert your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations into an Adobe Flash presentation? There are many applications available that will convert your .ppt files into .swf files, but what if you’re not really looking to spend any money. Here’s a great article from Actionscript.org, that explains how to manually convert your PowerPoint files into Flash files. I think this is a very smart trick and I believe this will get the job done for most simplistic PowerPoint files.

The process involved with converting your PowerPoint files using this method is a little lengthly, but the article even offers advice on some commercial applications. You can view the complete article at Actionscript.org.

via Actionscript.org

Ever want to rewind your animation that lives on the Flash timeline without creating a whole separate animation. Well, here’s a tutorial from LearnFlash.com that’ll show you how to rewind any animation that has been constructed via the timeline. It’s pretty quick,easy, and effective.

via LearnFlash

Below is an example of the expected results:

The video behind the tutorial:

Ever wanted to add some realism into your existing animations. Here’s a good tutorial from LearnFlash.com that introduces the concept of gravity within Adobe Flash using Actionscript 3.0.

With the use of simple physics and minor equations, Graig Campbell, the author, pulls off a neat gravity effect within the flash environment. Overall, this tutorial is fairly simple yet very effective. Take a look for yourself.

via LearnFlash