Event Details:

• Date: Saturday July 24, 2010 from 10am - 4:30pm
• Location: Sabre - 3150 Sabre Drive B1-157, Southlake, TX 76092
• Cost: $99 (+Eventbrite fee) - includes lunch

Register here for the Intro to ActionScript 3 Workshop

A few months ago I taught my first Flash class as part of the Big Design Workshop series. We had a great turnout (60+ attendees) and overall the response was very positive with the overwhelming majority asking about a follow up class to cover ActionScript* 3. Since my first class was an introduction to the Flash Platform (or more accurately Flash CS4) I though an Introduction to ActionScript 3 would be the logical focus of my next workshop.

As you already know, Flash is an extremely powerful graphics tool.  You can create dynamic, interactive animated content for everything from basic animations to entire web sites.  Flash provides developers and designers with greater control over the display of their works than would otherwise be possible.

The real power of the Flash Platform, however, comes when you are able to add interactivity to your content using ActionScript. You don’t need to be a hard core programmer, or have a desire to become a coder to take advantage of ActionScript. If you want to take your Flash projects to the next level, having even a basic understanding of how to use ActionScript is a must.

This workshop is for beginner to intermediate users of Flash who want to extend their knowledge beyond the drawing tools Flash has to offer. You should be somewhat familiar with the basic constructs of Flash (e.g. what a MovieClip is, how to create a symbol, and how to create a motion tween).  Bring your laptop to get some hands-on experience with ActionScript.  You can download Flash before the workshop or you can do it at the first break.  You are guaranteed to walk away with a good foundation on ActionScript programming with real examples, tips and tricks, and hand-on exercises.

What will you learn?

In this workshop, you will:

• Obtain an overview of ActionScript 3.0 and some of the different tools used to code for the Flash player
• Learn the Fundamentals of programming using ActionScript
• Perform hands-on exercises to learn how to:
  • Control your movies timeline (animation, looping, etc..)
  • Add interaction to your projects (rollovers, transitions, etc..)
  • Accessing external assets using code (load images, sound, text, etc..)

Who should attend?

This workshop is primarily for beginner and intermediate users of Flash. This workshop is ideal for students, teachers, designers, and developers who want to learn more about the programming side of Flash.  Dave will be sharing tips and tricks on Flash throughout the workshop.

Cost of the Workshop?

The workshop price is $99 (plus EventBrite fees), which is a great bargain.  The price includes a pizza lunch, drinks, trial versions of software, and additional swag.  DFW-UPA and LV Graphics Studios will be sponsoring the pizza lunch and drinks.

Workshop Details

The location of Flash Boot Camp will be at Sabre in Building B (Room B1-157), which is the building on the right .  Your day basically looks like this:

TIME                                 DESCRIPTION

10am – 11am                     ActionScript Overview
11am – 12pm                     ActionScript Programming Fundamentals (Hands-on Exercises)
12pm – 1pm                       Lunch Break
1pm – 2:30pm                    ActionScript Programming Fundamentals cont… (Hands-on Exercises)
2:30 – 3pm                         PM Break
3pm – 4:30pm                    Hands-on Exercises

Register here for the Intro to ActionScript 3 Workshop

*Adobe, the Adobe logo, Adobe AIR, ActionScript, Flash, Flash Lite, Flex, Flex Builder, MXML, and Pixel Bender are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

1. Setting up FlexBuilder 3 to work with Flash CS4

First lets set-up FlexBuilder to import the Flash CS4 libraries. You'll need to modify the paths to follow your specific paths (e.g. change the username)
- Click Images to see full size -

FIRST:
Window -> Preferences -> General -> Workspace -> Linked Resources
Path is : C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS4\Common\Configuration\ActionScript 3.0\projects\Flash\src\

SECOND:
Project -> Properties -> ActionScript Build Path -> Source Path Tab

THIRD:
Project -> Properties -> ActionScript Build Path -> Library Path Tab

2. Speeding up FlexBuilder Compile Times

1. Add additional Compiler arguments to your project: Project->Properties->Flex Compiler->Additional Compiler Arguments incremental=true -keep=true. That only updates and compile files and with changes and does not compile all the stuff again. Great results on medium/big projects. For the first time it takes more time to compile (due to cache file generation), but the next compiles are really fast.-keep=true or -keep-generated-actionscript=true can be other good tip, but only for check generated action script files (created under "generated" folder, good for debugging and code-check) but this does not tune up the compiling time.
2. Close extra projects
3. Turn off "Copy non-embedded files to source folder"
4. Turn off "Build Automatically"

3. Lets not forget about Plug-ins

There are quite a bit of Eclipse plug-ins in existence. Not all will help you with ActionScript coding but there are quite a few that will. I use the Snippets panel found in the CFEclipse plug-in, the ToDo panel, and the Status Memory Monitor Plugin.

1. Check out the 3 part series by Lee Brimelow on adding enhancements to FB 3 (especially the Snippets Panel).  Part 1, 2, 3
2. Here's another great post - Pimp my ‘clipse - a list of must-have Eclipse plug-ins for Flex/Flash Development
3. The the Status Memory Monitor Plugin is really cool. It allows you to for Eclipse/FB to run its garbage Collection, freeing up memory and resources. Great Productivity enhancement.

Anyway those are just a few ways you can set up FlexBuilder to allow you to be more productive. Please post your own tips if you have any.

-Dave

The first annoying bug is that I cant ctrl+click on a class name and navigate to that class unless I force FlexBuilder to import a class via code completion first. Once I do that then the class names become clickable by holding down the ctrl key. However even when i do that, once I click on the class name I get an error notifying me that "The file you chose is not inside a project...".

But it is, its part of the linked resource classes that I have as part of the project. Ahh this is irritating.

Then the last annoyance (so far) is now when I have code problems, FlexBuilder's problems panel will show the error and the line its on, but under the Resource column it just shows the project name and the Path column is completely blank... yeah that's helpful

I'm considering downgrading back to FB 2.01 at least until this project is done. If anyone knows how to fix it let me know, It would be much appreciated!

I have been trying to decide what is better/proper practice when it comes to Events in AS3. Is it better to extend and create custom event classes that contain gettable/settable properties to be passed along with the event? Versus, dispatching a more generic event and have the listener reference back to the object that fired the event to obtain a property value? Is the pain of creating multiple Event classes going to benefit me in performance? Is there a hit to the performance for a listener to receive an event, and reference back to a target to get the property values it needs?

Any feedback on this subject would be greatly appreciated

This wont be a long post, mainly because I don't have much to say other than BUY THIS BOOK!! This is the FIRST O'Reilly book I have ever been able to read cover-to-cover. O'Reilly books traditionally have seems very dry, albeit the perfect technical resources, just not a "reader". This book changes that (for me anyway).

Anyone who has coded anything in AS 1 or 2 doesn't need me to tell them that Colin Moock is a bad ass and any book he writes is a must have for any Flash developer. The only thing missing from this book is a reference like the ActionScript Definitive Guide had. I know Adobe has LiveDocs (although I really wish they'd post the HTML source for them so I can host it locally like Macromedia used to do), and thats great an all, but I really like having a written reference to go to.

Other than that, I just had to get a quick post to say thanks again to Colin for a kick ass book.... and to say it again, BUY THIS BOOK!!

(fyi.. all links to the books in this post will give credit to Colin via Amazon... he deserves it!)