Noob Flash

With the Adobe Flash CS3 fast approaching, it is important to understand one of the elements any Flash developer lives and dies by… the debugger. This article will give you a tour of the new ActionScript 3.0 debugger interface and some of the different features found in the debugger. It also discusses how to use the debugger when you’re troubleshooting issues with ActionScript 3.0 classes and frame scripts in FLA files.

You’ll learn all about breakpoints, how to use them in your ActionScript 3.0 code, and the role they play in debugging your Flash application.

View the Article [adobe.com]

With a typical Array in Flash, you can define one element and call that element with the arrayName[arrayIndex]. This works fine if you only have one element you want to be defined in the array. What if you want to define multiple elements in the array? That’s where multidimensional arrays come into play.

Here is an example of multidimensional array code in flash.

var array:Array = new Array();
array[0] = ["cat.jpg", "1", "Here is a picture of a cat"];
array[1] = ["dog.jpg", "2", "Here is a picture of a dog"];
array[2] = ["frog.jpg", "3", "Here is a picture of a frog"];


To access the data, use array[0][0] to access “cat.jpg”, array[1][1] to access “2″, and array[2][2] to access “Here is a picture of a frog”.

In this tutorial I will explain how to make a simple flash button. This will be part one of the Flash button series.

To complete this tutorial, you must have Flash 8 installed. If you do not have Flash 8, you can download the 30 day trial.

Open flash and create a new document 250px by 250px. Select the Rectangle tool and draw a rectangle about 200px wide by 50px tall.

After creating the rectangle, select it by double-clicking the rectangle and select Modify > Convert to symbol from the toolbar (Or press F8) to convert the rectangle to a symbol. Name your symbol button_mc.

Once you have created your symbol, click it and select Window > Actions from the toolbar (Or press F9) to open your Actions code window. In the Actions panel, with your symbol selected, type the following code:

on (release) {
getURL("http://www.noobflash.com");
}

Select Control > Test Movie from the toolbar (Or press CTRL+Enter) to test your Flash movie. Click your button and you should be taken to the Noob Flash homepage.

That’s it! Pretty easy, huh? In the next lesson we will learn how to create this same button using nothing but ActionScript.

If you want you can download the Flash 8 Source File.

Check out this movie tutorial by Martin Evening in which he reveals some hidden tips for working with the quick selection tool. Plus, Martin shows you how refine Edge can be used to modify a layer mask in situ, which is far more useful than having to just guess which slider settings to use when modifying a selection.

View Tutorial Video

Simulate moving water with ActionScript. After this tutorial you can easily apply the effect to your own photos and web graphics using the same technique.

View Tutorial [pixelhivedesign.com]