ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook: Solutions for Flash Platform and Flex Application Developers

by Darron Schall, Keith Peters, Joey Lott

Book Overview

Well before Ajax and Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation hit the scene, Macromedia offered the first method for building web pages with the responsiveness and functionality of desktop programs with its Flash-based "Rich Internet Applications". Now, new owner Adobe is taking Flash and its powerful capabilities beyond the Web and making it a full-fledged development environment.

Rather than focus on theory, the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596526954
• ISBN13: 9780596526955
• Release Date: October 2006
• Publisher: Adobe Developer Library
• Length: 588 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Fast ramp up to Actionscript 3.0

This book was exactly what I was looking for: a reference-style book to quickly look up how to do something specific with ActionScript 3. It is for generally experienced developers that already know what they want to do and just need to see how it's done in with AS3 in the classic cookbook style. There is no coverage of Flex or Flex Builder (perfect!). This is also not a tutorial book so you may need to look elsewhere if that is what you need.

Great reference for all those frequently needed tasks... a must have.

This is a great reference for all those finicky, frequently needed tasks for which the syntax is so easy to forget, such as creating loaders, simulating dice/cards, dealing with the display list, manipulating bitmaps, programming animation, XML, etc. An essential book for any Flex/Flash ActionScript3 programmer. I highly recommend this book.

Very nice! A must-have!

As a developer w/ java background, I found this book nicely written and to the point! It clearly explains the major aspects of Action Script 3.0 w/ very useful, real-world examples throughout the book. I've been reading this book multiple times, each time finding something useful! Recommeded to any serious programmers!

Immediately Useful - A Great Read

The "ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook" was a great read. In fact, I read most of it in a local bookstore in the course of one evening. The code samples were immediately useful and easy to follow - I have already put them to use in my current Flex 2 projects. Chapter 6 (Display List), Chapter 15 (Programming Sound), and Chapter 16 (Video) were especially useful to me. I found that looking up ActionScript-related keywords in the index allowed me to quickly get to the "good stuff" on a particular topic. For instance, I needed some help on adding a TextInput control to a Canvas using only ActionScript (e.g. not with the MXML tag). I found "adding item to display list, 141-145" in the index, and the detailed explanation of the solution was exactly what I needed - no fluff, just stuff. Thank you to O'Reilly and the authors, Joey Lott, Darron Schall, and Keith Peters for the inspiration.

A great addition to your ActionScript knowledge base

This book is in the style of the classic O'Reilly Cookbook series format, in which each recipe presents the problem, the solution, and a discussion of the solution. Each section pretty much stands alone, although you should understand chapter one on the basics before moving on. The Discussion sections of each recipe offer a good analysis of how the solution works and different design choices and their various ramifications. Thus you get the best of both worlds - quick and easy access to the answers you want and deeper insights into the nature of both the problem and the solution. This book is helping me develop my understanding of ActionScript concepts by applying them in real situations and I highly recommend it. All of the code examples in this book are based on ActionScript 3.0 and only compatible with products that support ActionScript 3.0. Flex 2.0 and Flash 9 allow you to author ActionScript 3.0 content. Flash Player 9 supports ActionScript 3.0. If you are using a product that does not support ActionScript 3.0, then the code in this book is not likely to work. The following is the table of contents: Chapter 1. ActionScript Basics Recipe 1.1. Creating an ActionScript Project Recipe 1.2. Customizing the Properties of an Application Recipe 1.3. Where to Place ActionScript Code Recipe 1.4. How to Trace a Message Recipe 1.5. Handling Events Recipe 1.6. Responding to Mouse and Key Events Recipe 1.7. Using Mathematical Operators Recipe 1.8. Checking Equality or Comparing Values Recipe 1.9. Performing Actions Conditionally Recipe 1.10. Performing Complex Conditional Testing Recipe 1.11. Repeating an Operation Many Times Recipe 1.12. Repeating a Task over Time Recipe 1.13. Creating Reusable Code Recipe 1.14. Generalizing a Method to Enhance Reusability Recipe 1.15. Exiting a Method Recipe 1.16. Obtaining the Result of a Method Recipe 1.17. Handling Errors Chapter 2. Custom Classes Classes are absolutely essential to ActionScript 3.0. This is truer in ActionScript 3.0 than in any earlier release of the language. ActionScript 1.0 was essentially a procedural language with modest object-oriented features. ActionScript 2.0 formalized the object-oriented features and took a big step in the direction of a truly object-oriented language. However, ActionScript 3.0 shifts the core focus of ActionScript so that the basic building block is that of the class. If you are using ActionScript 3.0 with Flex, and the introduction of the minor exception of code being placed within mx_Script tags, all ActionScript code must appear within a class. This chapter discusses the fundamentals of writing custom classes in ActionScript 3.0. Recipe 2.1. Creating a Custom Class Recipe 2.2. Determining Where to Save a Class Recipe 2.3. Creating Properties That Behave As Methods Recipe 2.4. Creating Static Methods and Properties Recipe 2.5. Creating Subclasses Recipe 2.6. Implementing Subclass Versions of Superclass Methods Recipe 2.7. Creating Constan