Flash and AS3 links - documentation

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Revision as of 17:07, 31 October 2007 by Widged (talk | contribs) (→‎AS3: added ISBN information for some books)
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Documentation Links

See also

Across the board

Cheatsheets


Reference and manuals on-line

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

Language References and Live Docs

(It's not really obvious to find things at Adobe. There is much more documentation that one might think at first glance ...)

  • Flex Live Docs (for ActionScript 3 programming). For programmers only.

Online manuals

Other documentation

  • ActionScript 3 from Adobelabs. Maybe superseded by the above doc, maybe not ...

Migrating from AS2 to AS3

Rapid Overviews/Presentations

Books

Flash CS3

No idea if they are any good, except Veer, The Missing Manual which is great for learning drawing and the Flash CS3 tool. It doesn't cover ActionScript 3.

  • Adobe Creative Team (2007). Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Classroom in a Book. ISBN 0321499824
  • Anderson, Andy (2007). Adobe Flash CS3 Professional On Demand. ISBN 0789736926 592 pages.
  • Finkelstein Ellen and Gurdy Leete (2007). Flash CS3 For Dummies. ISBN 0470121009, 408 pages.
  • Gerantabee, Fred (August ? 2007). Dynamic Learning: Flash CS3 Professional. ISBN 10 0-596-51058-6
  • Veer, E.A. Vander and Chris Grover (2007). Flash CS3: The Missing Manual. ISBN 0596510446 - 527 pages. - O'Reilly page (From reviews on the web, this looks like the most suitable one for starters. The example files can be found on the Missing CD-ROM page. Daniel K. Schneider bought this and I think it's ok, can be used as a textbook, if you agree to cover topics by topics v.s a more project-oriented approach.)
  • Morris David (2007). Creating a Web Site with Flash CS3 Professional: Visual QuickProject Guide. ISBN 0321503007

AS3

  • Moock, Colin, Essential Actionscript 3.0, O'Reilly. ISBN 0-596-52694-6. 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.
  • Gary Rosenzweig, Flash Game University, Que (1st Ed.). ISBN 0-789-73702-7. All code in actionscript 3. I didn't have a chance to read it yet. Had a look at the code kindly provided (there is a notice that you should be buying the book if you want to make use of the code). Keeps away from OO programming for the most part. This can make it super-easy for an AS2 coder to get started with AS3. But this prevents you from taking the habit to organize your code more efficiently. Comes with support forum and code examples.

Advanced concepts

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