Day 1 – Introducing Flash

Introducing Flash CS5

• launching flash
• resetting the workspace
• exploring the welcome screen
• the flash files explained
• creating our first flash file
• the panels
• modifying the movie properties
• saving the file

Getting to Grips with Drawing

• strokes
• fills
• solving classic problems

Shape Interaction

• working in a single layer causes its problems
• accidental fill on fill
• but this can be useful
• stroke – fill interactions

Working in Layers

• building new layers
• locking previous layers to prevent modification
• hiding and showing layers
• outline view as an alternative to visibility
• adding shadows to our design

Spelling it out

• the text tool
• checking the properties before you type
• adding our text
• back to black
• changing the properties
• discussing the anti-alias options
• working with large blocks of text
• an example of text orientation
• breaking apart text and applying a stroke

Enhancing the Design with Images

• a simple import to stage
• let’s take a look at workflow
• a workflow for transparent content
• working with “vector” artwork

Being Symbolic ?

• the concept
• convert to symbol
• compare and discuss the symbol types
• look at color effects
• look at filters
• reuse is the key
• blend modes

Using the Mask

• importing an image
• creating a new layer
• using the grid fill deco tool
• turning it into a mask
• locking layers and preview

Tweening Time

• steps to happiness
• tweening different properties
• putting it into practise – let’s build a banner
• the magic staircase
• animating images
• “cache as bitmap”
• exploring easing and breaking up a tween

Publishing your Movie

• a quick look at publish settings
• publishing the movie
• reviewing the output

Day 2 – Getting all interactive

Back to Banners

• banner advert sizes
• let’s build a banner to brush up our skills
• alphas, movement, scale, blur
• placing backgrounds and borders on our banner
• “advertisement” text
• “transparent” corners
• creating movieclips in retrospect
• masking revisited
• using a mask in an animation
• how to add a simple link

The Building Blocks of a Simple Microsite

• building a button o
• duplicating symbols
• bringing the buttons together
• using a movieclip for the background
• sketching out the design

Building our first page

• the home page

Building the other pages

• Using scenes to separate our “pages”
• getting the content in the same place
• duplicating the title symbol and then swapping it out
• swapping out the image
• modifying the layout
• naming our scenes
• modifying behaviour with a sprinkling of script
• adding some code to make the buttons work
• sneaking in a simple preloader
• adding labels to our frames as “anchors”
• changing our publish settings to enable the anchors
• reviewing the movie and fixing any problems

Publishing the Microsite

• Publish settings and the flash player version
• Reviewing our result

Day 3 – Pushing Our Movies Further

Banner adverts

• dimensions and file sizes
• working our graphics before use
• the kuler extension
• motion tweening with the motion editor and easing
• duplicating motion to a second symbol
• motion presets
• mask layers and movieclips in retrospect

Introducing Interaction

• movieclips as buttons
• using this to create popups
• blend modes and reflections
• instance names
• scaling symbols and 9-slice view
• the scroll pane and scrolling content

Frame by Frame Animation

• illustrator as a tool
• the import process
• drawn and scanned content
• import an image series
• tracing bitmaps and optimizing curves

Character Animation and the Bones Tool

• importing from illustrator and movie clips
• using the bones tool
• building a basic animation*

Working in 3D

• first, the limitations
• using perspective to produce a different design
• gradient styles
• bitmap fills
• blend modes to darken into the distance
• movement in 3D and the motion editor
• rotation in 3D and the classic problem of completion
• publish settings and GPU acceleration

Working with XFL

• After Effects to Flash workflow
• Indesign to Flash using xfl

Getting it All Online

• using a swf in a dreamweaver page
• window modes and overlapping divs
• the code produced by flash and how to use it

Day 4 – Building Better Microsites

The Flash Project

• creating a project
• separating content into separate swfs
• the UILoader component
• backgrounds and 9-slice scaling
• libraries and runtime sharing

Building Navigation

• movieclips as buttons
• frame labels
• audio on our buttons and runtime sharing
• grouping buttons as a navigation bar
• filters revisited
• instance names
• accessibility on our buttons
• applying a document class to intercept interaction

The Home Page

• static text and anti-aliasing
• importing an image for use
• converting to a movieclip to apply a filter
• introducing dynamic text
• fixing the size and making it scrollable
• adding the all important scroll bar
• making our text and images accessible
• considering localisation of content

The About Page

• working in the library
• producing more interesting content
• don’t forget accessibility and localisation
• using the scroll pane to make it scroll

The Products Page

• building another swf
• creating each “item” as a movieclip
• using the UILoader to load images at runtime
• the download preview

The Contact Page

• using scenes for navigation
• building a more interesting navigation bar with images
• applying a class to our buttons
• duplicating the scenes
• applying a document class to resolve navigation
• importing images
• making the map more exciting with a component
• building a form to collect information
• the importance of instance names

Publishing and Previewing Our Microsite

• reviewing the publish settings
• publishing the movie
• viewing in the browser

Day 5 – The Design <→ Develop Workflow*

The Key is in the Name

• planning and communication
• the initial design prototype and the first development meeting
• symbol names and types
• instance names
• “export for actionscript” and eloquent structure

Banner Advert ClickTags

• the theory of banner advert providers
• an insight into the html
• applying a document class to our banner
• viewing the example online

A Preloader

• movie structure
• “export for actionscript”
• looking at the bandwidth profiler
• adding a preloader scene
• changing the compiler settings
• using the deco tool to produce a preloader animation
• linking to our document class
• testing the movie and simulating the download

A ProgressBar

• the progress bar plan
• working in layers
• instance names and registration points
• masks can make things look great!
• clever looping animation
• using and naming our progress bar
• linking to the class definition
• testing the movie and simulating the download

A Photo Gallery

• the prototype sketch
• preparing our photos using batch processing
• writing an xml file
• building our flash movie
• creating dummy movieclips
• dynamic text and embedding fonts
• adding backgrounds and borders
• linking in our document class
• testing the movie and simulating the download

A Presentation

• working with scenes
• adding some animation
• playing it through
• it would be nice to have some control
• applying our code from the developer
• exploring the functionality

A Simple Tabbed View

• building our tabs
• building our pages
• naming the instances
• linking the pages and tabs to the base class
• enabling the component definitions
• viewing the component inspector
• setting the parameters
• testing the movie

A 3D Carousel

• building each item as a movieclip
• building a popup as a named instance
• creating a dummy movieclip to determine width, height and position
• applying a background gradient
• compile items into a CarouselItems movieclip and “export for actionscript”
• link our carousel to the developer’s code
• testing the movie

An MP3 Player

• building our individual components
• bringing them together and naming the instances
• linking our MP3Player to the developer’s code
• enabling the component definition
• drag and drop the component into the design
• use the component inspector to set the mp3 filename

An e-Book

• building our individual components
• bringing them together and naming the instances
• linking the document to our developer’s code
• testing the movie and exploring the functionality

A 3D Loader for Product Visualisation

• building a dummy placeholder
• linking to the developer’s code
• enabling the component definition
• adding the component to the movie
• setting the 3d filename in the component inspector
• testing the movie and exploring the functionality

Flash Adobe Certified Associate Exam

• Preparation
• Exam
• Pass or fail?

Introducing the Course

• Understanding the course format
• Reviewing the course objectives and prerequisites
• Looking at the course outline
• Adobe Flash New Features*
• New user interface
• Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator integration
• New drawing tools
• Actionscript 3.0
• Actionscript 3.0 Animation
• Actionscript 3.0 Debugger
• Flash Video Technology
• UI componenets
• Adobe Device Central

Creating and Importing Graphic Assets

• Working with different graphic formats
• Importing bitmap graphics
• Importing vector graphics
• Working with layers and layer folders
• Using the drawing tools
• Using object and merge drawing
• Working with the Color panels
• Creating and using Graphic symbols
• Using the Library panel

Using Text Effectively

• Using the Text tool
• Adding and formatting static text
• Changing font rendering methods
• Adding input text fields
• Embedding fonts in input text fields
• Using font best practices

Creating Animations

• Working with the Timeline
• Using Keyframes blank
• Keyframes and frames
• Creating motion tweens
• Creating shape tweens
• Creating transition effects
• Using animation best practices

Adding Actionscript with Script Assist and Behaviours

• Using Script Assist
• Adding actions to a frame
• Creating and using Button symbols
• Adding behaviours to a button
• Loading external SWFs

Using Moving Clips

• Creating and using Movie Clip symbols
• Organizing a Movie Clip Timeline
• Using actions to control a Timeline
• Using frame labels
• Responding to user interactions

Adding Sound and Video

• Importing sound
• Changing sound properties
• Adding sound to a Timeline
• Embedding video in a Timeline
• Using the FLV Playback component

Publishing Flash Documents

• Using different publishing formats
• Using publishing profiles
• Adding Flash Player detection
• Publishing for deployment

Dreamweaver New Features

• CSS Layouts
• CSS Management
• CSS Advisor
• Browser Compatibility
• Spry Data
• Spry Widgets
• Spry Effects
• Photoshop Integration
• Adobe Device Central
• Adobe Bridge

Getting Started

• Introducing Dreamweaver
• Learning the interface
• Defining a local site
• Creating a website

Adding Content to a Site

• Adding content
• Controlling document structure
• Making lists
• Adding horizontal rules
• Adding special characters

Formatting with Cascading Style Sheets

• Formatting text
• Introducing cascading style sheets
• Creating styles
• Exporting CSS rule definitions
• Creating class styles
• Attaching external style sheets
• Creating advanced styles
• Creating a new external style sheet
• Displaying styles
• Understanding cascading order and inheritance of styles

Working with Graphics

• Using graphics on web pages
• Placing graphics on the page
• Modifying image properties
• Editing images
• Doing roundtrip editing with Fireworks /Photoshop
• Customizing the Insert bar
• Adding Flash content
• Adding Flash Video

Navigating Your Site

• Understanding site navigation
• Linking to files in your site
• Linking to sites
• Linking to named anchors
• Adding e-mail links
• Linking from images
• Creating a jump menu

Designing Page Layouts with CSS

• Understanding page layout
• Using layers for layout
• Adding CSS to layers
• Using absolute and relative positioning
• Designing with DIVs
• Designing navigation links with CSS
• Importing tabular data
• Using table layout view

Using Libraries and Templates

• Using site library items
• Creating site templates
• Defining editable regions
• Using templates
• Applying a template to an existing page
• Modifying templates

Creating Forms

• Understanding forms
• Processing a form
• Setting focus in a form
• Validating a form

Testing

• Maintenance
• and Uploading
• Testing your site
• Maintaining your files and folders
• Connecting to a remote site
• Synchronising files

Day 1 – Getting Started

Introducing Flash

• launching flash
• resetting the workspace
• exploring the welcome screen
• the flash files explained
• creating our first flash file
• the panels
• modifying the movie properties
• saving the file

Getting to Grips with Drawing, strokes

• the line tool
• using the black mouse pointer to manipulate the line
• changing the stroke’s properties
• the colour panel and selecting the right options
• the pen tool
• the pencil and its crafty modes

Getting to Grips with Drawing, fills

• the basic shapes
• watching out for the stroke/fill conundrum
• manipulating shapes
• the color panel and fills solid
• bitmap and gradients solving classic problems

Shape Interaction

• working in a single layer causes its problems
• accidental fill on fill but this can be useful
• compound shapes and slicing shapes up
• stroke fill interactions

Working in Layers

• building new layers
• locking previous layers to prevent modification
• hiding and showing layers
• outline view as an alternative to visibility
• adding shadows to our design

Spelling it out

• the text tool
• checking the properties before you type
• adding our text
• back to black
• changing the properties
• discussing the anti-alias options
• working with large blocks of text
• an example of text orientation
• breaking apart text and applying a stroke

Enhancing the Design with Images

• a simple import to stage
• let’s take a look at workflow
• decide upon the size
• resize in fireworks
• using image preview to manipulate the quality
• exporting the image
• import to library and use the symbol in the movie
• a workflow for transparent content
• open the image in fireworks
• export as PNG32 to maintain transparency
• import to library and explore the bitmap properties
• working with ‘vector’ artwork
• tracing line-art drawings
• is it worth it?
• some nice examples

Being Symbolic?

• the concept
• convert to symbol, shape, text and image
• compare and discuss the symbol types
• look at colour effects
• look at filters
• reuse is the key
• blend modes

Using the Mask

• importing an image
• creating a new layer
• using the grid fill deco tool
• turning it into a mask
• locking layers and preview

Tweening Time

• steps to happiness
• tweening different properties, movement, alpha, scale and rotation
• putting it into practise,let’s build a banner
• the magic staircase
• animating images
• cache as bitmap
• exploring easing and breaking up a tween

Publishing your Movie

• a quick look at publish settings
• publishing the movie
• reviewing the output

Day 2 – Getting all interactive

Back to Banners

• banner advert sizes
• let’s build a banner to brush up our skills
• alphas, movement, scale, blur
• placing backgrounds and borders on our banner
• advertisement text
• transparent corners
• creating movieclips in retrospect
• masking revisited
• using a mask in an animation
• shape tweening and the spray brush
• how to add a simple link and let’s copy and paste the code

The Building Blocks of a Simple Microsite

• building a button,
• separating shape and colour
• creating a button symbol
• bevel filters and tint effects
• adding audio to the click and adding some dummy text
• duplicating symbols
• duplicating our button
• modifying the text
• bringing the buttons together
• grouping the buttons using a movieclip
• giving everything a name
• using a movieclip for the background
• building the symbol off the stage and it’s not the size that’s important
• sketching out the design
• a quick storyboard
• identifying extra elements
• rounded corners and 9-slice scaling

Building our first page

• the home page
• layers and layer names
• adding our library content
• adding text and applying formatting
• getting gradient text using masks
• image import and workflow revisited and lorem ipsum as a cheat

Building the other pages

• Using scenes to separate our pages
• getting the content in the same place
• duplicating the title symbol and then swapping it out
• swapping out the image
• modifying the layout
• naming our scenes
• modifying behaviour with a sprinkling of script
• adding some code to make the buttons work
• sneaking in a simple preloader
• adding labels to our frames as anchors
• changing our publish settings to enable the anchors
• reviewing the movie and fixing any problems

Publishing the Microsite

• Publish settings and the flash player version
• Reviewing our result

Banner adverts

• Dimensions & file sizes
• Working our graphics before use
• The Kuler extension
• Motion tweening with the motion editor & easing
• Duplicating motion to a second symbol
• Motion presets
• Mask layers & MovieClips in retrospect

Introducing Interaction

• MovieClips as buttons
• Using this to create popups
• Blend modes & reflections
• Instance names
• Scaling symbols & 9-slice view
• The scroll pane & scrolling content

Adding Video

• Importing video into Flash
• Encoding using Adobe Media Encoder
• Progressive vs. Streaming
• Embedding video onto Timeline
• Streaming Services & Adobe Flash Media Server

Working with Sound

• Importing different sound formats
• Adjusting the sound parameters
• Sound compression settings
• Adding sound via the timeline
• Adding sound from the properties pane
• Controlling sound on keyframes
• Adding sound effects
• Building custom sound envelopes
• Code Snippeting AS3 to control the sound
• Understanding ActionScript terminology

Building an animation on a path

• Controlling an object to follow a custom path
• Tweaking the path with the pen tool
• Change fill to paths
• Easing in & easing out
• Building a button & making it work
• Adding buildings & trees using Art Deco Tool
• Adding sound to a button

Frame-by-Frame Animation

• Illustrator as a tool
• The import process
• Drawn & scanned content
• Import an image series
• Tracing bitmaps & optimizing curves

Character Animation and the Bones Tool

• Importing from Illustrator & MovieClips
• Using the Bones tool
• Building a basic animation
• Constraining Joints
• Defining poses
• Creating a walk-cycle

Working in 3D

• First, the limitations
• Using perspective to produce a different design
• Gradient styles
• Bitmap fills
• Blend modes to darken into the distance
• Movement in 3D & the motion editor
• Rotation, translation & perspective in 3D
• Publish settings & GPU acceleration
• Building & animating a 3D Cube

Working with XFL

• After Effects to Flash workflow and FLV vs. XFL
• Indesign to Flash using XFL

Getting it all online

• Using a swf in a dreamweaver page
• Window modes & overlapping divs
• The code produced by flash & how to use it
• Understanding Flash player detection

Develop Workflow

• Planning & communication
• Convention in naming symbols
• Instance names
• ‘Export for actionscript’

Preloader

• Movie structure
• AS3 Linkage
• The bandwidth profiler
• Adding a preloader scene
• Changing the compiler settings
• Produce a preloader animation
• Linking to our document class
• Testing the movie & simulating the download

ProgressBar

• The progress bar plan
• Working in layers
• Instance names & registration points
• Masks can make things look great!
• Creating a ticking clock
• Using & naming our progress bar
• Linking to the class definition
• Testing the movie & simulating the download

Presentation

• Adding some animation
• Playing it through
• Simple Presentation template
• Advanced Presentation template

3D Carousel

• Building each item as a MovieClip
• Building a popup as a named instance
• Applying a background gradient
• Compile items into a Carousel Items
• Link our Carousel to the developer’s code
• Testing the movie

Flash Adobe Certified Associate Exam

• Mock Exam
• Discussion on Exam Questions
• Preparation
• Practice Exam
• Flash Adobe Certified Associate Exam
• Pass or Fail

Day 1 – Introducing Actionscript

Introducing Actionscript

• a brief history of flash
• Actionscript 123
• building a flash file
• exploring the document settings
• adding code on the timeline
• layers, organization and good structure

The Actionscript Syntax

• adding comments
• variables and assigning memory
• data types and assigning values, String, Number, int, uint, Boolean
• complex data types, instantiation an Date
• trace – your best friend in flash development
• breakpoints, debugging and the downloads

Controlling our Visual Design with our Code

• the importance of instance names
• feeling your way in the dark
• strong typing and defining aliases in code
• using getChildByName to access the ‘named’ objects
• casting – giving flash a hint
• modifying a movieclip’s properties, x, y, alpha, scaleX, scaleY, rotation
• saving time (but not effort) with with

All the Worlds a Stage

• the width and height of the stage
  *some useful properties, frameRate, fullScreenWidth, fullScreenHeight, displayState, wmodeGPU

Using the Stage Dimensions

• randomizing properties, x (Math.random() * this.stage.stageWidth) etc
• its no fun with just 1 – the for loop and numChildren
• that’s great, but what if we want 142

Tidying up the Code

• functions to do stuff
• call the functions
• passing an object to a function

If you can do it in Design

• we’ve seen alphas
• what about a tint
• importing extra libraries
• filters such as bevel
• drop shadow and blur
• introducing arrays
• some simple shorthand and more formal instantiation

Adding Mouse Interaction

• asking questions ‘an if and an is’
• the buttonMode property
• adding event listeners (the trickiest of all)
• event handling functions and the game of catch
• back to trace
• event.target

Controlling the Flow

• stopping the movie
• making it start again and designing a button to do it
• changing the mouse pointer
• adding an audible click using the code

Making Interaction More Interactive

• mouse down and mouse up
• enabling drag and drop
• limiting the drag area
• watching out for classic problems
• bringing our item to the top
• adding and removing a drop shadow

Scripted Animation Using the Tween Class

• importing the necessary
• on drop. plummet
• its ok, but where’s gravity gone? – easing to the rescue

Day 2 – An Orientation to Object Oriented Development

Drawing is so passe

• when we draw we create an object, can we do it in code?
• our first class
• extending code to save time and effort
• the constructor function
• shapes and the drawing api
• this is all a bit conceptual, let’s put one on the stage
• making our shape randomly position itself
• applying a gradient fill with code
• applying a tint in a random colour

Perhaps this is a bit Extreme

• Design <→ Develop workflow
• draw in the library, control behaviour in code
• our second class
• public and private instance variables
• reintroducing our randomness
• add many from the stage and see the code take charge

So if we can Inherit Behaviour

• he concept of inheritance
• a simple UML diagram
• sneaking something in the gap
• writing a ‘drag and drop’ movieclip class
• applying this to our class using inheritance
• testing the behaviour

Controlling the Whole Movie

• if we can control each library item, can we control the movie?
• getting the code off the timeline
• the document class – a massive movieclip
• loading and playing an mp3 bed
• controlling the volume of the audio
• event listeners and the id3 meta data in the mp3

Allowing Our Objects to Move

• can we give an object motion?
• instance variables and introducing setters/getters
• waiting until our object is on the stage
• the ‘enter frame’ event
• handling the event in a protected function
• using the Point class to help with the trigonometry
• checking we’re still on the stage
• apply the behaviour to some library items as the ‘base class’

Keeping Track of Each Other

• instance versus class variables
• maintaining a list in a static variable
• iterating through the array on enter frame
• performing a hit test
• handling the collision
• notifying the parent container
• handling this notification

Watching Some Video

• building a simple interface
• toggling the play/pause button
• displaying the flv filename
• allowing our movie to change the filename
• getting the video to work

Watching Ourselves

• using the camera
• taking a snapshot
• bitmaps and bitmapdata
• using the UILoader class to display the snapshot

Day 3 – Working with an Entire Project

Working in a Project

• creating a flash project
• creating and setting our default document
• coming up with a design
• building our scene
• working in layers
• buttons, movieclips and navigation
• splitting out our pages into modules
• loading them in with the UILoader
• adding our document class and working in folders

Building a Preloader

• building a preloader animation
• adding a scene for it
• the bandwidth profiler gives it all away
• ‘export for Actionscript3’ and the compiler settings
• writing the ‘PreloadedDocument’ base class
• implementing the base class with inheritance
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Tracking the Progress

• creating the ‘ProgressDisplay’ movieclip
• discussing the design
• building the components and naming the instances
• adding it in and naming it!
• writing the code to control it
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Building Our Pages as Separate Movies

• working with multiple swfs
• adding the movies to the project publish list
• designing the scenes
• implementing our preloader and progress
• testing the movies individually

Implementing the Navigation

• listening for mouse events
• event.target and the switch statement
• getChildByName and the UILoader
• loading the correct page
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Dynamically Loading Text

• The Home document class
• changing our static text to be dynamic
• getChildByName and setting the text programmatically
• font embedding
• extracting our text into an external file
• adding some html formatting to the text
• loading the text from the file
• tracking the load complete event
• displaying the text in the dynamic text box
• exploring the html formatting
• revisiting our font embedding
• adding scrollable functionality to the text box

Going Even Further

• we want to build a list of products
• building the list in another fla
• implementing the preloader
• using a scroll pane to load the content
• testing the project and simulating the download

Bonus Topic – Loading XML Data

• loading some xml, after all its only text
• breaking it down and grabbing what we want
• looping through and tracing out the data
• homework – try and build the products list dynamically

Planning & Designing Flash Applications

• Understanding Flash Lite
• Accessibility in Flash
• Adobe AIR’s usage
• Advertising standards
• FXG Format
• XFL file Format

Creating & Managing Assets

• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Working with the Library
• Lossy vs. Lossless
• Symbols and their uses
• Filtering in the Library
• Functionality of Flash tools

3D in Flash

• 3D Rotation & Transformation
• Vanishing point & Perspective in 3D
• Local Space vs. Global Space

Inverse Kinematics

• Armature Poses and Merge-Shapes
• Bones Tool & Bind Tool
• Joint X & Y Translation
• Degrees of Freedom
• Speed parameter on Armature

New CS5 Features

• TLF text engine
• Font Embedding
• Building, Tree, Decorated Brush
• FLVPlayback component
• Cue points

Programming with ActionScript 3.0

• Basics of OOP & Polymorphism
• blendMode method
• Getter’s & Setters
• Implement & Interface
• Public vs. Private
• Code Snippets, Auto-Fill & Code Hints
• Linkage & conventions
• Using trace() method
• Working with FullScreen

Working with ActionScript Classes

• Understanding Classes, Class Hierarchy & Packages
• Using the Document Class
• What is a Constructor, Data Type & Namespace
• Timer, Graphic, Rectangle, Shape, TextField Classes
• Loader Class & contentLoaderInfo property
• URLLoader & navigateToURL
• URLRequest, URLStream & URLVariables
• Sound Class & load() method
• SharedObject & flush() method
• ExternalInterface Class

Testing Flash Applications

• Bandwidth profiler
• Simulating Download Speeds
• Publish Settings & Generating reports
• Debugging, Watchlists & breakpoints
• Device Central
• Cross-Domain Policy

Straight in at the Deep End

• a revision of OO and the document class
• design patterns and introducing mvc
• planning our strategy
• the model and the singleton pattern
• handling the logic in the controller
• custom events and inheritance
• the problem with events
• building an event bus
• commands to do the work and interfaces
• linking the event to the command
• triggering our first command
• utilizing someone else’s code – the flex sdk
• loading our data from an xml file
• strong typing and valueobjects
• responders, asynctokens and the model
• telling the view our data’s ready

Dynamically Creating Content

• first, build a visual representation of the component
• program the class and alias the visual children
• expose the properties using setters and getters
• think about accessibility
• linking to the model
• for each iteration
• adding and positioning children
• the scroll pane as a useful tool
• rollover interaction and the mouse enabled property

Custom Events that Carry Data

• previewing a product
• dispatch from a view, handle in the controller
• store the “selected” item in the model
• notifying the view
• constructing the component
• writing the class to tie it all together

A Favourites List

• movieclips as buttons and a handy base class
• events and commands to add to the favourites
• using the List control and the DataProvider class
• checking we’re not adding the same product twice
• removing a single item from the list
• removing all the items from the list
• storing the favourites for next time
• loading the favourites next time in

Using FlashVars

• passing data from the html into the movie
• allow the xml filename to be passed in
• breakpoints and debugging
• making our movie load a different xml file

Making it Look Good

• nesting our movieclips allows us to apply effects, but not hinder functionality
• adding a little loading animation

Building an Audio Player

• the visual components
• an event architecture
• loading and playing the sound
• id3 tag info and displaying it in a text box
• controlling the volume
• muting the sound
• BONUS – analyzing the sound and displaying the frequency spectrum
• using compiler meta data to add a component definition
• using the component definition in the designer
• passing in the filename using the component inspector
• using our player in the products application

Toggling to Full Screen

• building a toggle button
• listening to the stage
• changing the display state
• making it work in the browser with html
• using our full screen toggle in the products application
• discussing the stage scale modes

Downloading Images From Our Application

• a custom event
• linking to a custom command
• the FileReference class
• event listeners and notification of the download
• notifying the user with a modal popup

Exploring the Idea of Popups

• a compare favourites panel
• iterating through the favourites data
• adding instances of a “compare” movieclip
• using the scroll pane horizontally
• adding and removing the popup
• applying a transition with the transition manager

Introducing Actionscript

• a brief history of flash
• Actionscript 123
• building a flash file
• exploring the document settings
• adding code on the timeline
• layers, organization and good structure

The Actionscript Syntax

• adding comments
• variables and assigning memory
• data types and assigning values, String, Number, int, uint, Boolean
• complex data types, instantiation an Date
• trace – your best friend in flash development
• breakpoints, debugging and the downloads

Controlling our Visual Design with our Code

• the importance of instance names
• feeling your way in the dark
• strong typing and defining aliases in code
• using getChildByName to access the ‘named’ objects
• casting – giving flash a hint
• modifying a movieclip’s properties, x, y, alpha, scaleX, scaleY, rotation
• saving time (but not effort) with with

All the Worlds a Stage

• the width and height of the stage
  *some useful properties, frameRate, fullScreenWidth, fullScreenHeight, displayState, wmodeGPU

Using the Stage Dimensions

• randomizing properties, x (Math.random() * this.stage.stageWidth) etc
• its no fun with just 1 – the for loop and numChildren
• that’s great, but what if we want 142

Tidying up the Code

• functions to do stuff
• call the functions
• passing an object to a function

If you can do it in Design

• we’ve seen alphas
• what about a tint
• importing extra libraries
• filters such as bevel
• drop shadow and blur
• introducing arrays
• some simple shorthand and more formal instantiation

Adding Mouse Interaction

• asking questions ‘an if and an is’
• the buttonMode property
• adding event listeners (the trickiest of all)
• event handling functions and the game of catch
• back to trace
• event.target

Controlling the Flow

• stopping the movie
• making it start again and designing a button to do it
• changing the mouse pointer
• adding an audible click using the code

Making Interaction More Interactive

• mouse down and mouse up
• enabling drag and drop
• limiting the drag area
• watching out for classic problems
• bringing our item to the top
• adding and removing a drop shadow

Scripted Animation Using the Tween Class

• importing the necessary
• on drop. plummet
• its ok, but where’s gravity gone? – easing to the rescue

An Orientation to Object Oriented Development

Drawing is so passe

• when we draw we create an object, can we do it in code?
• our first class
• extending code to save time and effort
• the constructor function
• shapes and the drawing api
• this is all a bit conceptual, let’s put one on the stage
• making our shape randomly position itself
• applying a gradient fill with code
• applying a tint in a random colour

Perhaps this is a bit Extreme

• Design <? Develop workflow
• draw in the library, control behaviour in code
• our second class
• public and private instance variables
• reintroducing our randomness
• add many from the stage and see the code take charge

So if we can Inherit Behaviour

• he concept of inheritance
• a simple UML diagram
• sneaking something in the gap
• writing a ‘drag and drop’ movieclip class
• applying this to our class using inheritance
• testing the behaviour

Controlling the Whole Movie

• if we can control each library item, can we control the movie?
• getting the code off the timeline
• the document class – a massive movieclip
• loading and playing an mp3 bed
• controlling the volume of the audio
• event listeners and the id3 meta data in the mp3

Allowing Our Objects to Move

• can we give an object motion?
• instance variables and introducing setters/getters
• waiting until our object is on the stage
• the ‘enter frame’ event
• handling the event in a protected function
• using the Point class to help with the trigonometry
• checking we’re still on the stage
• apply the behaviour to some library items as the ‘base class’

Keeping Track of Each Other

• instance versus class variables
• maintaining a list in a static variable
• iterating through the array on enter frame
• performing a hit test
• handling the collision
• notifying the parent container
• handling this notification

Watching Some Video

• building a simple interface
• toggling the play/pause button
• displaying the flv filename
• allowing our movie to change the filename
• getting the video to work

Watching Ourselves

• using the camera
• taking a snapshot
• bitmaps and bitmapdata
• using the UILoader class to display the snapshot

Working with an Entire Project

Working in a Project

• creating a flash project
• creating and setting our default document
• coming up with a design
• building our scene
• working in layers
• buttons, movieclips and navigation
• splitting out our pages into modules
• loading them in with the UILoader
• adding our document class and working in folders

Building a Preloader

• building a preloader animation
• adding a scene for it
• the bandwidth profiler gives it all away
• ‘export for Actionscript3’ and the compiler settings
• writing the ‘PreloadedDocument’ base class
• implementing the base class with inheritance
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Tracking the Progress

• creating the ‘ProgressDisplay’ movieclip
• discussing the design
• building the components and naming the instances
• adding it in and naming it!
• writing the code to control it
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Building Our Pages as Separate Movies

• working with multiple swfs
• adding the movies to the project publish list
• designing the scenes
• implementing our preloader and progress
• testing the movies individually

Implementing the Navigation

• listening for mouse events
• event.target and the switch statement
• getChildByName and the UILoader
• loading the correct page
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Dynamically Loading Text

• The Home document class
• changing our static text to be dynamic
• getChildByName and setting the text programmatically
• font embedding
• extracting our text into an external file
• adding some html formatting to the text
• loading the text from the file
• tracking the load complete event
• displaying the text in the dynamic text box
• exploring the html formatting
• revisiting our font embedding
• adding scrollable functionality to the text box

Going Even Further

• we want to build a list of products
• building the list in another fla
• implementing the preloader
• using a scroll pane to load the content
• testing the project and simulating the download

Bonus Topic – Loading XML Data

• loading some xml, after all its only text
• breaking it down and grabbing what we want
• looping through and tracing out the data
• homework – try and build the products list dynamically

Planning & Designing Flash Applications

• Understanding Flash Lite
• Accessibility in Flash
• Adobe AIR’s usage
• Advertising standards
• FXG Format
• XFL file Format

Creating & Managing Assets

• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Working with the Library
• Lossy vs. Lossless
• Symbols and their uses
• Filtering in the Library
• Functionality of Flash tools

3D in Flash

• 3D Rotation & Transformation
• Vanishing point & Perspective in 3D
• Local Space vs. Global Space

Inverse Kinematics

• Armature Poses and Merge-Shapes
• Bones Tool & Bind Tool
• Joint X & Y Translation
• Degrees of Freedom
• Speed parameter on Armature

New CS5 Features

• TLF text engine
• Font Embedding
• Building, Tree, Decorated Brush
• FLVPlayback component
• Cue points

Programming with ActionScript 3.0

• Basics of OOP & Polymorphism
• blendMode method
• Getter’s & Setters
• Implement & Interface
• Public vs. Private
• Code Snippets, Auto-Fill & Code Hints
• Linkage & conventions
• Using trace() method
• Working with FullScreen

Working with ActionScript Classes

• Understanding Classes, Class Hierarchy & Packages
• Using the Document Class
• What is a Constructor, Data Type & Namespace
• Timer, Graphic, Rectangle, Shape, TextField Classes
• Loader Class & contentLoaderInfo property
• URLLoader & navigateToURL
• URLRequest, URLStream & URLVariables
• Sound Class & load() method
• SharedObject & flush() method
• ExternalInterface Class

Testing Flash Applications

• Bandwidth profiler
• Simulating Download Speeds
• Publish Settings & Generating reports
• Debugging, Watchlists & breakpoints
• Device Central
• Cross-Domain Policy

Day 1 – Introducing Actionscript

Introducing Actionscript

• a brief history of flash
• Actionscript 123
• building a flash file
• exploring the document settings
• adding code on the timeline
• layers, organization and good structure

The Actionscript Syntax

• adding comments
• variables and assigning memory
• data types and assigning values, String, Number, int, uint and Boolean
• complex data types and instantiation and Date
• trace – your best friend in flash development
• breakpoints, debugging and the downloads

Controlling our Visual Design with our Code

• the importance of instance names
• feeling your way in the dark
• strong typing and defining aliases in code
• using getChildByName to access the ‘named’ objects
• casting – giving flash a hint
• modifying a movieclip’s properties, x, y, alpha, scaleX, scaleY and rotation
• saving time (but not effort) with with

All the World’s a Stage

• the width and height of the stage
• some useful properties, frameRate, fullScreenWidth, fullScreenHeight, displayState and wmodeGPU

Using the Stage Dimensions

• randomizing properties, x (Math.random() * this.stage.stageWidth) etc
• its no fun with just 1 – the for loop and numChildren
• that’s great, but what if we want 142

Tidying up the Code

• functions to do stuff
• call the functions
• passing an object to a function

If you can do it in Design…

• we’ve seen alphas, what about a tint, importing extra libraries filters such as bevel, drop shadow and blur
• introducing arrays, some simple shorthand and more formal instantiation

Adding Mouse Interaction

• asking questions, an if and an is
• the buttonMode property
• adding event listeners (the trickiest of all)
• event handling functions and the game of catch
• back to trace
• event.target

Controlling the Flow

• stopping the movie
• making it start again, and designing a button to do it
• changing the mouse pointer
• adding an audible click using the code

Making Interaction More Interactive

• mouse down and mouse up
• enabling drag and drop
• limiting the drag area
• watching out for classic problems
• bringing our item to the top
• adding and removing a drop shadow

Scripted Animation Using the Tween Class

• importing the necessary
• on drop…. plummet
• its ok, but where’s gravity gone? – easing to the rescue

Day 2 – An Orientation to Object Oriented Development

Drawing is so passe

• when we draw we create an object, can we do it in code?
• our first class
• extending code to save time and effort
• the constructor function
• shapes and the drawing api
• this is all a bit conceptual, let’s put one on the stage
• making our shape randomly position itself
• applying a gradient fill with code
• applying a tint in a random colour

Perhaps this is a bit Extreme

• Design <→ Develop workflow
• draw in the library, control behaviour in code
• our second class
• public and private instance variables
• reintroducing our randomness
• add many from the stage and see the code take charge

So if we can Inherit Behaviour

• the concept of inheritance
• a simple UML diagram
• sneaking something in the gap
• writing a ‘drag and drop’ movieclip class
• applying this to our class using inheritance
• testing the behaviour

Controlling the Whole Movie

• if we can control each library item, can we control the movie?
• getting the code off the timeline
• the document class – a massive movieclip
• loading and playing an mp3 bed
• controlling the volume of the audio
• event listeners and the id3 meta data in the mp3

Allowing Our Objects to Move

• can we give an object motion?
• instance variables and introducing setters/getters
• waiting until our object is on the stage
• the ‘enter frame’ event
• handling the event in a protected function
• using the Point class to help with the trigonometry
• checking we’re still on the stage
• apply the behaviour to some library items as the ‘base class’

Keeping Track of Each Other

• instance versus class variables
• maintaining a list in a static variable
• iterating through the array on enter frame
• performing a hit test
• handling the collision
• notifying the parent container
• handling this notification

Watching Some Video

• building a simple interface
• toggling the play/pause button
• displaying the flv filename
• allowing our movie to change the filename
• getting the video to work

Watching Ourselves

• using the camera
• taking a snapshot
• bitmaps and bitmapdata
• using the UILoader class to display the snapshot

Day 3 – Working with an Entire Project

Working in a Project

• creating a flash project
• creating and setting our default document
• coming up with a design
• building our scene
• working in layers
• buttons, movieclips and navigation
• splitting out our pages into modules
• loading them in with the UILoader
• adding our document class and working in folders

Building a Preloader

• building a preloader animation
• adding a scene for it
• the bandwidth profiler gives it all away
• ‘export for actionscript’ and the compiler settings
• writing the ‘PreloadedDocument’ base class
• implementing the base class with inheritance
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Tracking the Progress

• creating the ‘ProgressDisplay’ movieclip
• discussing the design
• building the components and naming the instances
• adding it in, and naming it !
• writing the code to control it
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Building Our Pages as Separate Movies

• working with multiple swfs
• adding the movies to the project publish list
• designing the scenes
• implementing our preloader and progress
• testing the movies individually

Implementing the Navigation

• listening for mouse events
• event.target and the switch statement
• getChildByName and the UILoader
• loading the correct page
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Dynamically Loading Text

• The Home document class
• changing our static text to be dynamic
• getChildByName and setting the text programmatically
• font embedding
• extracting our text into an external file
• adding some html formatting to the text
• loading the text from the file
• tracking the load complete event
• displaying the text in the dynamic text box
• exploring the html formatting
• revisiting our font embedding
• adding scrollable functionality to the text box

Going Even Further

• we want to build a list of products
• building the list in another fla
• implementing the preloader
• using a scroll pane to load the content
• testing the project and simulating the download

Bonus Topic – Loading XML Data

• loading some xml, after all its only text
• breaking it down and grabbing what we want
• looping through and tracing out the data
• homework – try and build the products list dynamically

Day 4 – OO, Events and Design Patterns

Straight in at the Deep End

• a revision of OO and the document class
• design patterns and introducing mvc
• planning our strategy
• the model and the singleton pattern
• handling the logic in the controller
• custom events and inheritance
• the problem with events
• building an event bus
• commands to do the work and interfaces
• linking the event to the command
• triggering our first command
• utilizing someone else’s code – the flex sdk
• loading our data from an xml file
• strong typing and valueobjects
• responders, asynctokens and the model
• telling the view our data’s ready

Dynamically Creating Content

• first, build a visual representation of the component
• program the class and alias the visual children
• expose the properties using setters and getters
• think about accessibility
• linking to the model
• for each iteration
• adding and positioning children
• the scroll pane as a useful tool
• rollover interaction and the mouse enabled property

Custom Events that Carry Data

• previewing a product
• dispatch from a view, handle in the controller
• store the ‘selected’ item in the model
• notifying the view
• constructing the component
• writing the class to tie it all together

A Favourites List

• movieclips as buttons and a handy base class
• events and commands to add to the favourites
• using the List control and the DataProvider class
• checking we’re not adding the same product twice
• removing a single item from the list
• removing all the items from the list
• storing the favourites for next time
• loading the favourites next time in

Using FlashVars

• passing data from the html into the movie
• allow the xml filename to be passed in
• breakpoints and debugging
• making our movie load a different xml file

Making it Look Good

• nesting our movieclips allows us to apply effects, but not hinder functionality
• adding a little loading animation

Day 5 – Building and Implementing Components

Building an Audio Player

• the visual components
• an event architecture
• loading and playing the sound
• id3 tag info and displaying it in a text box
• controlling the volume
• muting the sound
• BONUS – analyzing the sound and displaying the frequency spectrum
• using compiler meta data to add a component definition
• using the component definition in the designer
• passing in the filename using the component inspector
• using our player in the products application

Toggling to Full Screen

• building a toggle button
• listening to the stage
• changing the display state
• making it work in the browser with html
• using our full screen toggle in the products application
• discussing the stage scale modes

Downloading Images From Our Application

• a custom event
• linking to a custom command
• the FileReference class
• event listeners and notification of the download
• notifying the user with a modal popup

Exploring the Idea of Popups

• a compare favourites panel
• iterating through the favourites data
• adding instances of a ‘compare’ movieclip
• using the scroll pane horizontally
• adding and removing the popup
• applying a transition with the transition manager

Introducing Flash

• Launching flash
• Resetting the workspace
• Exploring the welcome screen
• The flash files explained
• Creating our first flash file
• The panels
• Modifying the movie properties
• Saving the file

Getting to Grips with Drawing

• Strokes
• Fills
• Solving classic problems

Shape Interaction

• Working in a single layer causes its problems
• Accidental fill on fill (how it can be useful…)
• Stroke – fill interactions

Working in Layers

• Building new layers
• Locking previous layers to prevent modification
• Hiding and showing layers
• Outline view as an alternative to visibility
• Adding shadows to our design

Spelling it out

• The text tool
• Checking the properties before you type
• Adding our text
• Back to black
• Changing the properties
• Discussing the anti-alias options
• Working with large blocks of text
• An example of text orientation
• Breaking apart text and applying a stroke

Enhancing the Design with Images

• A simple import to stage
• Let’s take a look at workflow
• A workflow for transparent content
• Working with ‘vector’ artwork

Being Symbolic

• The concept
• Convert to symbol
• Compare and discuss the symbol types
• Look at color effects
• Look at filters
• Re-use is the key
• Blend modes

Using the Mask

• Importing an image
• Creating a new layer
• Using the grid fill deco tool
• Turning it into a mask
• Locking layers and preview

Tweening Time

• Steps to happiness
  • Tweening different properties
• Putting it into practise – let’s build a banner
• The magic staircase
• Animating images
• ‘cache as bitmap’
• Exploring easing and breaking up a tween

Publishing your Movie

• A quick look at publish settings
• Publishing the movie
• Reviewing the output

Getting all interactive

Back to Banners

• Banner advert sizes
• Let’s build a banner to brush up our skills
• Alphas, movement, scale, blur
• Placing backgrounds and borders on our banner
• ‘Advertisement’ text
• ‘Transparent’ corners
• Creating movieclips in retrospect
• Masking revisited
• Using a mask in an animation
• How to add a simple link

The Building Blocks of a Simple Microsite

• Building a button o
• Duplicating symbols
• Bringing the buttons together
• Using a movieclip for the background
• Sketching out the design

Building our first page

• The home page

Building the other pages

• Using scenes to separate our ‘pages’
• Getting the content in the same place
• Duplicating the title symbol and then swapping it out
• Swapping out the image
• Modifying the layout
• Naming our scenes
• Modifying behaviour with a sprinkling of script
• Adding some code to make the buttons work
• Sneaking in a simple pre-loader
• Adding labels to our frames as “anchors”
• Changing our publish settings to enable the anchors
• Reviewing the movie and fixing any problems

Publishing the Microsite

• Publish settings and the flash player version
• Reviewing our result

Banner adverts

• Dimensions and file sizes
• Working our graphics before use
• The kuler extension
• Motion tweening with the motion editor and easing
• Duplicating motion to a second symbol
• Motion presets
• Mask layers and movieclips in retrospect

Introducing Interaction

• Movieclips as buttons
• Using this to create popups
• Blend modes and reflections
• Instance names
• Scaling symbols and 9-slice view
• The scroll pane and scrolling content

Frame by Frame Animation

• Illustrator as a tool
• The import process
• Drawn and scanned content
• Import an image series
• Tracing bitmaps and optimizing curves

Working in 3D

• First, the limitations
• Using perspective to produce a different design
• Gradient styles
• Bitmap fills
• Blend modes to darken into the distance
• Movement in 3D and the motion editor
• Rotation in 3D and the classic problem of completion
• Publish settings and GPU acceleration

Working with XFL

• After Effects to Flash workflow
• InDesign to Flash using xfl

Getting it All Online

• Using a SWF in a Dreamweaver page
• Window modes and overlapping divs
• The code produced by Flash and how to use it

Building Better Microsites

The Flash Project

• Creating a project
• Separating content into separate swfs
• The UILoader component
• Backgrounds and 9-slice scaling
• Libraries and runtime sharing

Building Navigation

• Movieclips as buttons
• Frame labels
• Audio on our buttons and runtime sharing
• Grouping buttons as a navigation bar
• Filters revisited
• Instance names
• Accessibility on our buttons
• Applying a document class to intercept interaction

The Home Page

• Static text and anti-aliasing
• Importing an image for use
• Converting to a movieclip to apply a filter
• Introducing dynamic text
• Fixing the size and making it scrollable
• Adding the all important scroll bar
• Making our text and images accessible
• Considering localisation of content

The About Page

• Working in the library
• Producing more interesting content
• Don’t forget accessibility and localisation
• Using the scroll pane to make it scroll

The Products Page

• Building another swf
• Breating each ‘item’ as a movieclip
• Using the UILoader to load images at runtime
• The download preview

The Contact Page

• Using scenes for navigation
• Building a more interesting navigation bar with images
• Applying a class to our buttons
• Duplicating the scenes
• Applying a document class to resolve navigation
• Importing images
• Making the map more exciting with a component
• Building a form to collect information
• The importance of instance names

Publishing and Previewing Our Microsite

• Reviewing the publish settings
• Publishing the movie
• Viewing in the browser

The Design <? Develop Workflow

• Planning and communication
• The initial design prototype and the first development meeting
• Symbol names and types
• Instance names
• ‘Export for Actionscript’ and eloquent structure

Banner Advert ClickTags

• The theory of banner advert providers
• An insight into the html
• Applying a document class to our banner
• Viewing the example online

A Preloader

• Movie structure
• ‘Export for Actionscript’
• Looking at the bandwidth profiler
• Adding a preloader scene
• Changing the compiler settings
• Using the deco tool to produce a preloader animation
• Linking to our document class
• Testing the movie and simulating the download

A ProgressBar

• The progress bar plan
• Working in layers
• Instance names and registration points
• Masks can make things look great!
• Clever looping animation
• Using and naming our progress bar
• Linking to the class definition
• Testing the movie and simulating the download

A Photo Gallery

• The prototype sketch
• Preparing our photos using batch processing
• Writing an XML file
• Building our flash movie
• Creating dummy movieclips
• Dynamic text and embedding fonts
• Adding backgrounds and borders
• Linking in our document class
• Testing the movie and simulating the download

A Presentation

• Working with scenes
• Adding some animation
• Playing it through
• It would be nice to have some control
• Applying our code from the developer
• Exploring the functionality

A Simple Tabbed View

• Building our tabs
• Building our pages
• Naming the instances
• Linking the pages and tabs to the base class
• Enabling the component definitions
• Viewing the component inspector
• Setting the parameters
• Testing the movie

A 3D Carousel

• Building each item as a movieclip
• Building a popup as a named instance
• Creating a dummy movieclip to determine width, height and position
• Applying a background gradient
• Compile items into a Carousel Items movieclip and ‘Export for Actionscript’
• Link our carousel to the developer’s code
• Testing the movie

An MP3 Player

• Building our individual components
• Bringing them together and naming the instances
• Linking our MP3Player to the developer’s code
• Enabling the component definition
• Drag and drop the component into the design
• Use the component inspector to set the mp3 filename

An e-Book

• Building our individual components
• Bringing them together and naming the instances
• Linking the document to our developer’s code
• Testing the movie and exploring the functionality

A 3D Loader for Product Visualisation

• Building a dummy placeholder
• Linking to the developer’s code
• Enabling the component definition
• Adding the component to the movie
• Setting the 3d filename in the component inspector
• Testing the movie and exploring the functionality

Flash Adobe Certified Associate Exam

• Preparation
• Exam
• Pass or fail?

Introducing Actionscript

• a brief history of flash
• Actionscript 123
• building a flash file
• exploring the document settings
• adding code on the timeline
• layers, organization and good structure

The Actionscript Syntax

• adding comments
• variables and assigning memory
• data types and assigning values, String, Number, int, uint, Boolean
• complex data types, instantiation an Date
• trace – your best friend in flash development
• breakpoints, debugging and the downloads

Controlling our Visual Design with our Code

• the importance of instance names
• feeling your way in the dark
• strong typing and defining aliases in code
• using getChildByName to access the ‘named’ objects
• casting – giving flash a hint
• modifying a movieclip’s properties, x, y, alpha, scaleX, scaleY, rotation
• saving time (but not effort) with with

All the Worlds a Stage

• the width and height of the stage
  *some useful properties, frameRate, fullScreenWidth, fullScreenHeight, displayState, wmodeGPU

Using the Stage Dimensions

• randomizing properties, x (Math.random() * this.stage.stageWidth) etc
• its no fun with just 1 – the for loop and numChildren
• that’s great, but what if we want 142

Tidying up the Code

• functions to do stuff
• call the functions
• passing an object to a function

If you can do it in Design

• we’ve seen alphas
• what about a tint
• importing extra libraries
• filters such as bevel
• drop shadow and blur
• introducing arrays
• some simple shorthand and more formal instantiation

Adding Mouse Interaction

• asking questions ‘an if and an is’
• the buttonMode property
• adding event listeners (the trickiest of all)
• event handling functions and the game of catch
• back to trace
• event.target

Controlling the Flow

• stopping the movie
• making it start again and designing a button to do it
• changing the mouse pointer
• adding an audible click using the code

Making Interaction More Interactive

• mouse down and mouse up
• enabling drag and drop
• limiting the drag area
• watching out for classic problems
• bringing our item to the top
• adding and removing a drop shadow

Scripted Animation Using the Tween Class

• importing the necessary
• on drop. plummet
• its ok, but where’s gravity gone? – easing to the rescue

An Orientation to Object Oriented Development

Drawing is so passe

• when we draw we create an object, can we do it in code?
• our first class
• extending code to save time and effort
• the constructor function
• shapes and the drawing api
• this is all a bit conceptual, let’s put one on the stage
• making our shape randomly position itself
• applying a gradient fill with code
• applying a tint in a random colour

Perhaps this is a bit Extreme

• Design <? Develop workflow
• draw in the library, control behaviour in code
• our second class
• public and private instance variables
• reintroducing our randomness
• add many from the stage and see the code take charge

So if we can Inherit Behaviour

• he concept of inheritance
• a simple UML diagram
• sneaking something in the gap
• writing a ‘drag and drop’ movieclip class
• applying this to our class using inheritance
• testing the behaviour

Controlling the Whole Movie

• if we can control each library item, can we control the movie?
• getting the code off the timeline
• the document class – a massive movieclip
• loading and playing an mp3 bed
• controlling the volume of the audio
• event listeners and the id3 meta data in the mp3

Allowing Our Objects to Move

• can we give an object motion?
• instance variables and introducing setters/getters
• waiting until our object is on the stage
• the ‘enter frame’ event
• handling the event in a protected function
• using the Point class to help with the trigonometry
• checking we’re still on the stage
• apply the behaviour to some library items as the ‘base class’

Keeping Track of Each Other

• instance versus class variables
• maintaining a list in a static variable
• iterating through the array on enter frame
• performing a hit test
• handling the collision
• notifying the parent container
• handling this notification

Watching Some Video

• building a simple interface
• toggling the play/pause button
• displaying the flv filename
• allowing our movie to change the filename
• getting the video to work

Watching Ourselves

• using the camera
• taking a snapshot
• bitmaps and bitmapdata
• using the UILoader class to display the snapshot

Working with an Entire Project

Working in a Project

• creating a flash project
• creating and setting our default document
• coming up with a design
• building our scene
• working in layers
• buttons, movieclips and navigation
• splitting out our pages into modules
• loading them in with the UILoader
• adding our document class and working in folders

Building a Preloader

• building a preloader animation
• adding a scene for it
• the bandwidth profiler gives it all away
• ‘export for Actionscript3’ and the compiler settings
• writing the ‘PreloadedDocument’ base class
• implementing the base class with inheritance
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Tracking the Progress

• creating the ‘ProgressDisplay’ movieclip
• discussing the design
• building the components and naming the instances
• adding it in and naming it!
• writing the code to control it
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Building Our Pages as Separate Movies

• working with multiple swfs
• adding the movies to the project publish list
• designing the scenes
• implementing our preloader and progress
• testing the movies individually

Implementing the Navigation

• listening for mouse events
• event.target and the switch statement
• getChildByName and the UILoader
• loading the correct page
• testing the movie and simulating the download

Dynamically Loading Text

• The Home document class
• changing our static text to be dynamic
• getChildByName and setting the text programmatically
• font embedding
• extracting our text into an external file
• adding some html formatting to the text
• loading the text from the file
• tracking the load complete event
• displaying the text in the dynamic text box
• exploring the html formatting
• revisiting our font embedding
• adding scrollable functionality to the text box

Going Even Further

• we want to build a list of products
• building the list in another fla
• implementing the preloader
• using a scroll pane to load the content
• testing the project and simulating the download

Bonus Topic – Loading XML Data

• loading some xml, after all its only text
• breaking it down and grabbing what we want
• looping through and tracing out the data
• homework – try and build the products list dynamically

Planning & Designing Flash Applications

• Understanding Flash Lite
• Accessibility in Flash
• Adobe AIR’s usage
• Advertising standards
• FXG Format
• XFL file Format

Creating & Managing Assets

• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Working with the Library
• Lossy vs. Lossless
• Symbols and their uses
• Filtering in the Library
• Functionality of Flash tools

3D in Flash

• 3D Rotation & Transformation
• Vanishing point & Perspective in 3D
• Local Space vs. Global Space

Inverse Kinematics

• Armature Poses and Merge-Shapes
• Bones Tool & Bind Tool
• Joint X & Y Translation
• Degrees of Freedom
• Speed parameter on Armature

New CS5 Features

• TLF text engine
• Font Embedding
• Building, Tree, Decorated Brush
• FLVPlayback component
• Cue points

Programming with ActionScript 3.0

• Basics of OOP & Polymorphism
• blendMode method
• Getter’s & Setters
• Implement & Interface
• Public vs. Private
• Code Snippets, Auto-Fill & Code Hints
• Linkage & conventions
• Using trace() method
• Working with FullScreen

Working with ActionScript Classes

• Understanding Classes, Class Hierarchy & Packages
• Using the Document Class
• What is a Constructor, Data Type & Namespace
• Timer, Graphic, Rectangle, Shape, TextField Classes
• Loader Class & contentLoaderInfo property
• URLLoader & navigateToURL
• URLRequest, URLStream & URLVariables
• Sound Class & load() method
• SharedObject & flush() method
• ExternalInterface Class

Testing Flash Applications

• Bandwidth profiler
• Simulating Download Speeds
• Publish Settings & Generating reports
• Debugging, Watchlists & breakpoints
• Device Central
• Cross-Domain Policy