Flash and AS3 links

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Introduction

This page contains some general Flash and AS3 links

See also:

General Flash/AS3/Flex links

Flash developer web sites

(only a few, see also the tutorials sections)

Flash links @ Adobe

Forums

  • Kirupa Forums. This web site includes a series of popular Flash and AS forums.

Adobe AS3/Flex links

Flex

News / Feeds aggregators

References, documentation, and manuals on-line

Cheatsheets

  • From Adobe
    • atp_ria_guide.pdf. This 29 p. very short ActionScript reference for rich Internet application development provides an alphabetical reference for all native ActionScript APIs for the Adobe technology platform runtimes: Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR—as well as the Adobe Flex framework APIs.

Language References and Live Docs

Tip: Since the help pane in CS3 can't be really detached, better use Adobe's on-line help.

It's not really obvious to find things at Adobe. There is much more documentation that one might think at first glance. Here are just a few:

CS3

CS4

AS3 - Flash 9

AS3 - Flash 10

Flex

  • Programming ActionScript 3.0 @ Flex LiveDocs. Describes specific usage of the ActionScript 3.0 language and core Flash Player API. This is what beginning AS/Flex programmers should read.
  • Flex Live Docs (for ActionScript 3 programming). For programmers only.


Flash Tutorials and examples

This section only should index good and free tutorials. No junk indexes with nothing but advertisements. There is a problem with Flash Version. Various Flash versions are considerably different and most sites include older stuff...

Good Flash examples

demos
Artsy websites
  • Yugop (Abstract animation art)
Flash trailers for company websites / advertizements
Flash comics
Flash games

Web sites with tutorials

  • Both just links or "real" repositories
  • Since there exist very little Flash 9-only collections, I also include sites with older information. There is quite a huge difference between ActionScript 2 and 3, but drawing and the elements of the Flash environment (timeline, etc.) are not that different.
Collections - both text and videos
  • Oman3D. Contains both good text and video tutorials (the latter from learnflash.com).
  • Flalog, self-described as Flash Actionscript Tutorial Solution Experience
Collections - mostly video
  • Wikivid Flash. Index of Video Tutorials (mostly Flash 8, but CS3 is similar) from the whole web. Probably the biggest index of training videos.
  • cartoonsmart.com/ Includes three good Flash video tutorials, e.g. shape tweening and a button tutorial.
  • LearnFlash.com. (Some good free ones, scroll down, for more registration is needed)
Collections - mostly text tutorials
  • lukamaras.com Probably one of the best short tutorials site (mostly Flash MX/Flash 8)
  • WebWasp (some content is free, *.fla files are sold)
  • ToxicLab.org. About 99 little Flash tutorials submitted by various people. The ones I have seen are short and nice.
Collections - to sort out
  • Flash Kit Index of Tutorials (lots of outdated ones too).
  • Tutorom.com. For now only a tutorial on Flex or some old versions of Flash. Expected to see AS3 tutorials appear in the near future (the site manager is fond of Flex).
  • Flash Tutorials @ smartWebby. I haven't tried any of them, no idea what they are worth.
  • Flash @ TutorialsOutpost. I haven't tried yet. Not clear whether covers CS3.
  • Subsites of http://about.com, e.g. webdesign and [http:animation.about.com animation] have several flash related resources. You need to search ...

Recommended introductory CS3 tutorials

Basics (graphics and animation)

??

ActionScript 2.0
ActionScript 3.0

CS4 tutorials

CS4 introduction
ActionScript 3.0

Flash CS3/4/5 Books

  • Veer, E.A. Vander and Chris Grover (2007). The Missing Manual series.
    • CS3 ISBN 0596510446 (Daniel K. Schneider used this in class, ok for drawing, no ActionScript)
    • CS4 ISBN 0596522940
    • CS5 ISBN 978-1449380250

Flash/AS3 Books

  • Gary Rosenzweig, Flash Game University, Que (1st Ed.). ISBN 0789737027. All code in actionscript 3. So far the best beginner's text I found. Environment is CS3 (also can be used with CS4 and CS5) - Daniel K. Schneider 10:16, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Academic Flash courses

(should include lecture notes or Slides, plus examples)

Actionscript 3.0 and related tutorials

Tools

Rapid Overviews/Presentations

Migrating from AS2 to AS3

Java vs Actionscript 3

General AS 3 Tutorials

  • Learning ActionScript 3.0. Companion web site for the same book, ISBN 059652787X (but also includes little tutorials and examples).

Papervision Tutorials

See also Flash Papervision3D tutorial

Alternativa Tutorials

Game Programming

Component programming

(to sort out)

  • $.console A console for debuggin, pops up over your application (looks good, not tested so far).

AS3 Books

  • Moock, Colin, Essential Actionscript 3.0, O'Reilly. ISBN 0596526946. Read it (widged). This is a quite good book. It tries to do two things (1) provide a large overview of the ActionScript 3.0 language and (2) Provide a complex example of a quite complex program. The overview works well. I am not sure about the zoo example. It gives an idea of the way such a program gets written the OO way, but it's not clear that the book covers enough of the basics of OO programming to have you able to do more than copy, paste, and compile the code provided. The book works best for persons who start with actionscript and want to become acquainted with the different aspects of the language. One of the best books available. Keep in mind, however, that it has "essential" in the tiel. until a book "Actionscript 3.0, the definitive guide" becomes available. Something great about the book is that it is completely tool neutral. It is clearly explained how to run the code on either of Flash CS3, Flex Builder, Flex. Of Interest, codes and examples from the book are available on the author's website.
  • Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0, by Peter Elst, Sas Jacobs, Todd Yard. Friends of ED. ISBN 1590598458. I read a prior edition, on OO ActionScript not yet 3.0. An excellent book to learn the OO concepts behind AS3. The code mixes clear explanations and interesting enough examples (tweening animation, video medias, etc.). It also gives valuable tips on how to improve your coding practices by documenting your code and planning your design. Code examples can be downloaded from the FoED website.
  • ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns: Object Oriented Programming Techniques, by William Sanders, Chandima Cumaranatunge, O'Reilly. ISBN 0596528469.
  • Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns by Joey Lott and Danny Patterson, Adobe Press (1st Ed.) ISBN 0321426568. Had the merit to be out very early, right after Flex 2.0 got out. Didn't work for me. The O'Reilly book seems better.
  • Head First Design Patterns, by Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Freeman, Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates. O'Reilly. ISBN 0596007124. Nothing to do with Flash or ActionScript 3 but a splendid book to familiarize yourself with a design pattern approach to programming. Particularly suit learners who suffer with traditional teaching formats and are open to the idea of having fun when learning. The tone is light and friendly, but the content is real smart. Each chapter is made about half of theory and half of practice. The exercises proposed are really clever and really get you understand the concepts in more depth than when reading a more theoretical book. Code snippets are in Java, so you need at least to have reached the intermediate level in AS3 to be able to transfer the examples and practice from Java to AS3. Because of that, perhaps not worth investing your money... but you can probably get it easily enough from a library or a friend.

Flex Books

  • Programming Flex 2: The comprehensive guide to creating rich media applications with Adobe Flex, by Chafic Kazoun, Joey Lott. O'Reilly. ISBN 059652689X. Read it (widged). Very nice book. Ideal to get you started with Flex without any knowledge whatsoever of Actionscript or Flash (I had never programmed in Flash before reading that book). The first chapters are easy to follow, making sure that nobody will fall off the boat. The last chapters cover quite advanced concepts very efficiently.
  • Adobe Flex 2: Training from the Source, by Jeff Tapper, Matt Boles, James Talbot, Ben Elmore, Mike Labriola. Adobe Press. ISBN 032142316X. Had the merit to be one of the very first books on Flex 2. The title of the book reflects the fact that the approach taken here is to go through all that is required to create a complex enough on-line shop application. The application is being progressively written and you get precise information about why things get to be coded that way. It's a good book, especially if you are interested in the prospect of designing very modular applications. Its primary target is however freelance developers and really not students who want to learn how to write a mini-game.

AS 3 Example-based tutorials

AS 3 Examples

Sites with codes and Examples

Code snippets and toolkits for Flash and AS3

Reusable Flash and AS code

It's hard to separate websites that rather provide code for Flash designers with little AS knowledge and more advanced AS programmers. Sorry, you will have to find out yourself ...

There are several kinds of components that Flash designers should know about:

  • *.swf - Flash (embedd as movie)
  • *.fla - Flash source code (i.e. a template with drawings and code)
  • *.as - Action Script source code (watch out for the version !!)
  • *.swc - Compiled components (like the ones in the built-in components library).
Code Repositories (mostly free)
Where you can add and manage your own snippets
  • Snipplr.com, this allows you to keep an album with your own code... and access the code contributed by others. Search for "Flash" or "AS3".
  • DZone Snippets. Public source code repository. Easily build up your personal collection of code snippets, categorize them with tags / keywords, and share them with the world.

Search for ActionScript.

Commercial (I only want to have 5-6, the best at some point and not a long list ...)

Reusable AS components and libraries

These are exclusively for ActionScript programmers. Should be updated- Daniel K. Schneider 17:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC).

Tweening libraries:

  • Tweener Tweener (caurina.transitions.Tweener) is a Class used to create tweenings and other transitions via ActionScript code for projects built on the Flash platform.
  • TweenFilterLite. TweenFilterLite extends the extremely lightweight (2k), powerful TweenLite "core" class, adding the ability to tween filters (like blurs, glows, drop shadows, bevels, etc.) as well as image effects like contrast, colorization, brightness, saturation, hue, and threshold (combined size: 5k).
PHP bridges
  • WebORB for PHP Server-side technology enabling connectivity between Flex and Flash Remoting clients and PHP applications.

3D ActionScript toolkits

  • See Flash 3D, an entry that should list most of the tools and available AS3 libraries.

Physics and particle engines

Visualization libraries

  • Flare is an ActionScript library for creating visualizations that run in the Adobe Flash Player. From basic charts and graphs to complex interactive graphics, the toolkit supports data management, visual encoding, animation, and interaction techniques. It features a modular design that lets developers create customized visualization techniques. Note tested (but from the demoes you can see the great potential of this !)

Flash/AS3 and programming education

Using Flash and Actionscript to teach programming

  • Stewart Crawford & Elizabeth Boese (2006), ActionScript: a gentle introduction to programming, Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, Volume 21 , Issue 3 (February 2006) Pages: 156 - 168. Also here and here (Actionscript 2.0, but some ideas are still good).
  • Stiller, E. 2009. Teaching programming using bricolage. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges 24, 6 (Jun. 2009), 35-42.
  • Sands, M., Evans, J., and Blank, G. D. 2010. Widening the K-12 pipeline at a critical juncture with Flash™. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 25, 6 (Jun. 2010), 181-190. (ACM Abstract
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