This post describes some of the differences I have stumbled over whilst working with actionscript 3.0 and Flash CS3 compared to earlier versions.

It starts with ‘Export for Actionscript’

In AS2 if you wanted to access the properties of an instance on the stage from code you had to ensure that the “export for actionscript” checkbox was selected in the linkage properties for that MovieClip in the library. If it wasn’t, your code wouldn’t see the instance and would fail silently. This was pretty confusing at first and even once you got used to it there would be times that it would still catch you out.

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Writing your first Actionscript 3.0 application with Flash CS3? Here’s a quick guide to get the basics set up.

The basic set-up includes one .fla file and one .as file.

First create a fla. You can name this whatever you like. Maybe myFirstApp.fla. At this point you could start writing code directly into a frame on the timeline however best coding practice is to define a document class.

The document class can be specified by entering the name of a class into the property panel for the document. This is the same place where you would specify the size of your swf. Think of a name for your document class, maybe: myFirstApp. The document class doesnt have to have the same name as your main fla, there is no link between them.

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The time has come for us to expand! We have had a fantastically busy time of it and now we require to add to our existing 3 man team.
Web/Multimedia Developer
We have a position for an exceptional developer to join our small but expert team. Industry experience of Flash, video and web development combined with fluency in a range of programming languages on both server and the client side e.g Actionscript, javascript, PHP, .Net, Coldfusion, Ruby or python (you get the general idea). Must be able to understand and integrate multiple technologies into state of the art web applications. An unhealthy interest in the future of the web and cutting edge technologies is encouraged. The ability to have a boring technical conversation about Rich Internet Applications will also excite us.

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Adobe have released the next version of their advanced streaming and interactivity server, Flash media Server (also previously known as Flash Communication Server). This release splits functionality between two versions - Flash Media Interactive server and Flash Media Streaming Server.

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The wait is over for the next major release of Coldfusion. Version 8 boasts some fantastic new features, integration with other technologies and some cool AJAX features, (we sneakily built a google suggest type application in about 30 minutes in our development environment for example). Go check it out here: http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/

ok, next up in our exciting tips and tricks for css is my personal favourite…”css shorthand”…why is this my favourite?…because this reduces the amount of code we have to write and also streamlines our css by making the file smaller and hence load faster.

There are several areas within css where you can use shorthand, I’m not going into them in great depth here but i will mention what they are, give you an example and you can feel free to investigate them further, this is not intended to be a complete and concise reference, merely a guide to help you on your way.

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css classes and id’s - which to use?

An id is used to define a unique element in a page, this is a requirement of xhtml and should be observed. In the xhtml we name it by stating the following:
id=""
and in the corresponding css we select it with the hash symbol(#item{})

A class may be used as many times as desired in a page. In the xhtml we name it by stating the following:
class=""
and in the corresponding css we select it with the full stop symbol(.item{})

here comes the science….

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I was pratting about with textorizer and thought It’d be nice if you didn’t have to mess about with a command line purely to textify your image. So here we have ‘wordizzlifier’ a combination of textorizer and imagemagick with ghostscript and some php, slapped behind a flash front end.

Type in a list of words, click ‘up’ to select a jpg image (lees than 200k / 1000px x1000 px), and about 20 secs later it should load the image back in. Once it’s loaded, you can click ‘down’ to get at the jpg.

Here’s an example pic of me and stu in Snafu on the lash, and its wordizzlified output.

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It’s time for the next generation of Adobe creative products to be announced, “2 years + 80 million lines of code” they say, I’ve just watched their live webcast . . some things that caught my eye . .

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There are many times in a complex application done in flash you need to see how it responds in the field using live data on the web rather than purely tracing results in the Flash program itself.

My current toolbox includes:
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