Learn Programming with Flash MX

Transcription

1 Learn Programming with Flash MX Kristian Besley Ben Renow-Clarke APress Media, LLC

2 Learn Programming with Flash MX Copyright 2004 by Kristian Besley and Ben Renow-Clarke Originally published by Apress in 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN DO / ISBN (ebook) Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Technical Reviewers: Leon Cych, Dan Britton, Chris Crane Editorial Board: Dan Appleman, Craig Berry, Gary Cornell, Tony Davis, Steven Rycroft, Julian Skinner, Martin Streicher, Jim Sumser, Karen Watterson, Gavin Wray, John Zukowski Assistant Publisher: Grace Wong Project Managers: Kylie Johnston, Jenni Harvey, Vicki Idiens Copy Editor: Nicole LeClerc Production Manager: Kari Brooks Production Editor: Kelly Winquist Proofreader: Lori Bring Compositor: Katy Freer Indexer: Jo Crichton Cover Designer: Kurt Krames Manufacturing Manager: Tom Debolski In the United States: phone SPRINGER, orders@springer-ny.com, or visit Outside the United States: fax , orders springer.de, or visit For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA Phone , fax , info@apress.com, or visit The information in this book is distributed on an "as is" basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work. The source code for this book is available to readers at in the Downloads section. You will need to answer questions pertaining to this book in order to successfully download the code. Case study photos courtesy of Ellie Cooper (elle@eleanor-cooper.com), Jasper Renow-Clarke, and the authors. Wedding photos used with kind permission of Karl and Nia Besley. Kristian Besley bio photo by Simon James.

3 About the Authors Kristian Besley is a freelance author and Flash/web developer, specializing in interactivity and dynamic-driven content. He will, however, try his hand at just about anything... Kristian has written a considerable number of books, including Foundation Flash MX, Flash MX Video, and Learn Design with Flash MX. He is also a contributor to Computer Arts magazine. In 2002, his website graphclcom hosted the first ever worldwide HTML-based Table Art competition. The entries are viewable at The 2003 competition is currently being planned. Willing sponsors please apply to krisbesley@ntlworld.com. Kristian was born and raised in a city called Swansea in Wales and attended a Welsh-language school. Many thanks to Ben, Katy, Libby, Andrew, and Steve. Ben Renow-Clarke has been a writer and editor for a few years now, and spends too much of his time staring at computer screens. He is glad that programs like Flash exists to make this fun at least some of the time. He is currently living and working in the southeast of England, and finding out why Dante's deepest circle of hell should have been populated by herring gulls. He likes it when the sky is blue and sea is close, and he misses his far away friends. Ben would like to thank K + K, A, C + P, P + K, J + C, and every R-C for just being great really. He would also like thank EC for the photos. (EC can be reached at elle@eleanor-cooper.com, and is open to any comments and questions on the photos. You can view more of her work at

4 Welcome to the class 1 What is Flash MX?... 1 What is ActionScript?... 1 The virtual classroom... 2 Meet your teacher... 2 Meet your classmates... 2 Conventions....3 Support - we're here to help... 4 Class 1 Meet the students 5 Objectives... 5 Introduction... 6 What is Flash? Introducing Flash The stage The toolbar The Property inspector The timeline Frames and keyframes Various panels Tools The Arrow tool The Text tool Class 2 The Kiosk Project 41 Objectives Introduction The Kiosk project Accepting the project The project life cycle The requirements document Breaking down the requirements Interface design iv

5 Class 3 Programming Concepts 75 Objectives Introduction What's a program? The Actions panel What does a program look like? Variables Naming variables Creating variables Tracing variables Different types of data Copying variables Operators and expressions Operator precedence Advanced tracing The case study Class 4 Symbols and Objects 119 Objectives Introduction Symbols Creating a symbol Symbol types Movie clip symbols The graphic symbol The button symbol Instance names and objects Giving an instance a name Object Properties Methods Chapter 5 Interaction 147 Objectives Introduction Events Event Types v

6 Timed events Button Events Events in ActionScript Thumbnail events Screen Coordinates The _x and..y properties Incrementing or decrementing a variable or property Attaching instances from the Library Class 6 Programming Structures 179 Objectives Introduction If Conditionals Comparison and logical operators Back in the classroom Switch, case, and break Loop Structures While and do... while loops Dynamic paths Nested loops Class 7 Starting the Kiosk Project 213 Objectives Introduction Text Fields Text field properties Input text field properties Dynamic text field properties Using the TextField object in ActionScript Building the kiosk project Tabs The swapdepths method Working with the grid Making the About and Contact pages vi

7 Class 8 Arrays 253 Objectives Introduction What is an array? Making arrays Looking inside arrays Other ways to make arrays Array methods Popping and pushing Shifting and unshifting Slicing and splicing Simple sorting Multi-dimensional arrays Parsing arrays Importing images Building the case study Class 9 Functions 285 Objectives Introduction Using functions Functions with parameters Returning values from a function Case Study Image Preparations The drawgrid function Programming events for the thumbnails Tooltips Class 10 The Statistics Report 317 Objectives Introduction Keyboard listeners Creating a login box Creating the statistics screen Creating the hitarray vii

8 Adding the text fields The getstats function Data sorting Components The resort function The final buttons Class 11 Finishing the Kiosk Project 359 Objectives Introduction Timed Events Displaying an image on category change Working with projector files Preparing code for two different presentation versions FSCommands Publishing the Flash movie Publishing the projector files Coding conventions Class 12 Modifying the Case Study 393 Objectives The end of the road The cosmetically enhanced case study The individual case studies Carl: Sound in Flash Dynamically loading MP3 files Jim: Video in Flash Gemma: Web considerations The fun stuff Drawing with ActionScript Adigital clock Easing and dragging Changing color viii

9 Appendix A Class 1 Handout: Flash Tools 435 Tools reference The Arrow tool The Subselection tool The Line tool The Lasso tool The Pen tool The Text tool The Oval tool The Rectangle tool The Pencil tool The Brush tool The Free Transform tool The Fill Transform tool Linear gradients Radial gradients The Ink Bottle tool The Paint Bucket tool The Eyedropper tool The Eraser tool The Faucet tool Brush types View tools The Hand tool The Zoom tool Appendix B: Class 1 Handout: Shape Tweening 449 Appendix C: ASCII and Key codes 455 ASCII Chart Key codes Special Key Codes Index 459 ix