The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript

There are books on Flash and there are books on ActionScript but there are surprisingly few books that really get to grips with both Flash and ActionScript. This book is one of those few.

Flash CS4 is the latest version of Adobe’s IDE for developing and programming Flash graphics. It provides a suite of tools for designing and animating. Many people use it purely as an animation program that lets you place, move, ‘tween’ and render images along a timeline. But, in fact, Flash movies may also be controlled programmatically using ActionScript 3.0, which is now quite a powerful object oriented programming language.

This book is, in effect, divided into two distinct sections. The first 180 pages or so deal mainly with graphics and animation - how to draw shapes with Flash CS4, how to add graphic effects, move and rotate images or animate jointed characters.

The latter part of the book - from pages 186 to 518 - concentrates on programmable features of Flash. This starts out with some very simple explanations of how to write and run small ActionScript programs in Flash CS4 before going on to cover the fundamental features - the syntax and behaviour - of the ActionScript language. After that it moves on to a discussion of specific topics such as using XML, working with audio, debugging and building desktop applications using Adobe’s AIR runtime.

This is a useful book for existing Flash designers who want to add more interactivity to their applications by programming or for newcomers to Flash CS4 who need a good overview of its design and development capabilities. Bear in mind though, that it is aimed principally at designers who need to get up to speed with programming rather than programmers who need to get to grips with design. And it has nothing to say about Adobe’s Flex framework.

While this book is not as comprehensive as the Flash CS4 Professional Bible and not as colourful as Teach Yourself Visually Flash CS4, it is an approachable and useful introduction to design and development using Adobe’s Flash CS4 IDE.

Book Contents

 Part One: Basics

• Chapter 1: How It All Began
• Chapter 2: The New Interface of Flash CS4
• Chapter 3: Drawing with Flash’s Vector Tools
• Chapter 4: External Assets and Symbol Management
• Chapter 5: Working with Blends, Filters, and 3D Transformations

 Part Two: Animation

• Chapter 6: Basic Animation in Flash
• Chapter 7: Playing with Dolls: Introducing Flash IK

 Part Three: ActionScript

• Chapter 8: The Programming Primer: A Flash Designer’s Intro to ActionScript 3.0
• Chapter 9: The Building Blocks of Interactivity
• Chapter 10: Learning the Display Model and Bringing It All Together
• Chapter 11: Managing External Assets and Communication
• Chapter 12: XML: The Best Way In and Out of Flash

 Part Four: Additional User Interfaces

• Chapter 13: Working with Text and Strings
• Chapter 14: Using Components

 Part Five: Enhanced Media Development

• Chapter 15: Using the Adobe Media Encoder—A Crash Course
• Chapter 16: Working with Audio in Flash
• Chapter 17: Working with Video in Flash

 Part Six: Preparing Your Project for Deployment

• Chapter 18: Publishing, Exporting, and Debugging Your Flash Project
• Chapter 19: Building AIR Applications with Flash CS4