Essential ActionScript 3.0: ActionScript 3.0 Programming Fundamentals

by Colin Moock

Book Overview

ActionScript 3.0 is a huge upgrade to Flash's programming language. The enhancements to ActionScript's performance, feature set, ease of use, cleanliness, and sophistication are considerable. Essential ActionScript 3.0 focuses on the core language and object-oriented programming, along with the Flash Player API.Essential ActionScript has become the #1 resource for the Flash and ActionScript development community, and the reason is the author, Colin...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596526946
• ISBN13: 9780596526948
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Adobe Developer Library
• Length: 948 Pages
• Weight: 3.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

I do not understand how any programmer could hate this book. It is brilliantly written.

I am amazed at how thorough and organized this book is, but it is from a programmer's perspective. Some people said that this AS 3.0 book is not as good as his previous AS 2.0 book, but I disagree. Adobe has made major changes to the language, which (unfortunately) coerces ActionScript programmers into using object oriented programming techniques. This makes programming more difficult for designers, and more palatable for many programmers. Please don't blame Colin Moock for Adobe's changes ... he has done a brilliant job explaining the new ActionScript.

Good for beginners

AS3 really came as a shock to me, because I never wanted to become a programmer. I am a designer, and I enjoy working with color and pattern. But, I needed to be able to use Flash CS3, so I reluctantly decided to dive in. I tried the online courses, I went to an expensive classroom with an Adobe certified teacher, and I picked up a couple other books, and all these things helped even though they also caused a lot of frustration. This book just states the rules in the first half, and it's tough to get through, but it's doable, even for a beginner, if you can take a deep breath and relax, and you need to read this stuff, so you have a general knowledge of how the language works. It's like learning a new foreign language. It's boring to read the rules of grammar, but you need to get the hang of it, try it out, see how it sounds, and even if you skim Part 1, it's valuable. Part 2 gets into display techniques, and you need these as well. Part 3 prepares you for entrance into a field of professionals. Don't give in to frustration. Just read the book. It won't be the most pleasant thing you ever did, but it'll be well worth doing. Given what the author was attempting to do, I can't imagine it being done any better.

Fantastic, if you know your way already.

This review is more of a 'heads-up' for any beginners considering this book. There are many reviews here telling about the book's contents, so I am going to talk about the level of the book instead. I think it is important to state that this book is in NO WAY aimed or intended for beginners. None of the books in this series are, for that matter. Being fair, and I think this information is important for people even though a bit off topic: O'Reilly RARELY makes beginner level books. What they do make is insanely useful technical books which will tell you more than you probably ever wanted to know about a subject. But they are done, IMHO, very well. Still, when looking at books to buy I think it is important to keep this in mind, particularly if you are a beginner in any topic. Especially because most programming books are rather spendy. When I bought Moock's first book, I had been using AS for a couple years (starting from Flash 4) and was still a beginner. However, I could manage my way through the very limited scripting options. When Flash 5 opened up the AS language to a full-blown environment, I was excited to get his book. Once it arrived, I was completely overwhelmed and immediately put it away. For about a year. During that time, I found other materials and boned up on my AS, THEN revisited the book. I found it much more useful. When AS 2 came out, I thought the same thing. Ah-ha! I already know AS, so his book will get me up to speed. Wrong. The stuff which was pretty much lifted from the previous AS 1 book made sense, but I could not grasp what he was saying about the updates and new features in AS 2. Again, I put the book away for a year, found other resources to familiarize myself with, and revisited the book. I was surprised at the wealth of information I learned, but I learned it AFTER reading numerous other sources. Leading to this book, I completely expect the same. I am buying it because I KNOW it will be a tome well worth the price based on my looking through it at local book sellers. No one, at least that I have read, has the depth of understanding of AS Moock does. He, IMHO, really understands the what and how. And he will tell you EVERYTHING about it. He does not, sadly, possess the 'layman language' to make this a beginner book. It barely makes sense to those well immersed in the topic. BUT, once you get to the level that you can absorb what he is saying, you catapult your Flash skills and usage. For beginners, definitely start elsewhere. Books by Phillip Kerman or Joey Lott are marvelous entry level books. Both authors have a superior knowledge of Flash AS, but the also possess the ability to talk about it conversationally. A huge help in anyone's learning of a new subject. Flash AS is a huge uphill battle, but one which rewards richly for those who travel the path. I would just hate to have someone not try because they do not understand a book reportedly aimed at developers with 'no prior programming knowledge.'

Evolved into the authoritative ActionScript resource

§ With this third edition, "Essential ActionScript" has evolved into THE authoritative ActionScript resource. As one indication, this edition as over 900 pages while the last edition had about 500. There are over 15 technical reviewers, including chief Adobe engineers. This book is the one you want. This review is short since the other reviews contain a good description of the contents. I just want to point out for those coming from a conventional browser JavaScript background that this book is a real education -- and does it with seamless ease. Chapter 1 explains key concepts that differentiate the ActionScript context from the conventional browser scripting environment. In this and following chapters, Colin Moock assumes you are *not* familiar with detailed knowledge of object oriented programming concepts. Accordingly, he discusses these topics when they become most relevant to learning ActionScript. This concrete approach is something most of us will appreciate. §

A complete guide for using ActionScript 3.0

This is not just an upgrade to Moock's earlier book on ActionScript 2.0. If you have that book, getting this one will not be a waste of time as this book is a complete rewrite. This book covers ActionScript programming fundamentals in exhaustive detail with clarity and precision. It explores ActionScript from a programmer's perspective, but assumes no prior programming knowledge. If you have never programmed before, start with Chapter 1. It will guide you through the very basics of ActionScript, and explain terms like variable, method, class, and object. Then continue through the book sequentially. Each chapter builds on the previous chapter's concepts, introducing new topics in a single, prolonged narrative that will gradually build your ActionScript skills and understanding. If you are a designer who simply wants to learn how to control animations in the Flash authoring tool, you probably don't need this book, and Adobe's documentation should be sufficient. Come back to this book when you want to learn how to add logic and programmatic behavior to your content. If you already have existing ActionScript experience, this book will help you fill in gaps in your knowledge, rethink important concepts in formal terms, and understand difficult subjects through plain language. This book is divided into three parts. Part I, ActionScript From the Ground Up, provides exhaustive coverage of the core ActionScript language, covering object-oriented programming, classes, objects, variables, methods, functions, inheritance, datatypes, arrays, events, exceptions, scope, namespaces, and XML. Part I closes with a look at Flash Player's security architecture. This section consists of chapters 1 through 19. Part II, Display and Interactivity, explores techniques for displaying content on screen and responding to input events. Topics covered include the Flash runtime display API, hierarchical event handling, mouse and keyboard interactivity, animation, vector graphics, bitmap graphics, text, and content loading operations. This section consists of chapters 20 through 28. Part III, Applied ActionScript Topics, focuses on ActionScript code-production issues. Topics covered include combining ActionScript with assets created manually in the Flash authoring tool, using the Flex framework in Flex Builder 2, and creating a custom code library. This section consists of chapters 29 through 31. This book closes with a walkthrough of a fully functional example program--a virtual zoo, the pieces of which have been discussed as examples in explanations of various aspects o ActionScript throughout the book up to this point. Noteworthy ActionScript-related topics that are not covered extensively in this book include MXML, the Flex framework, Flex Data Services, the Flash authoring tool's built-in components, Flash Media Server, Flash Remoting, and ActionScript's regular expression support. The detailed table of contents is as follows: Part I. ACTIONSCRIPT FROM THE GROUND UP