Actionscript 3 - Flash Based Website Basics - First Steps - Good Practices
Jul 20, 2010
I have a bit of Flash experience, did a full featured movie player, other stuff in AS3 and got plenty of programming skills in other languages, BUT now I need to create a multi paged website. Quite easy, a few pages, some animations here and there, nothing fancy, got all the graphics.
But time is short on this one, so I need some advice about good practices (pack everything into one main MC or make separate swfs and load them in, etc.), where to begin, or what kind of book should I grab to make the job pretty.
If I've got a getter method, say a(), that returns the private variable _a. Obviously from outside the class I call instanceOfClass.a. But from inside the class, should I use the getter or directly _a? Suppose I'm writing a method that uses _a: should I use _a or a? var b = a; or var b = _a? Maybe for performance reasons it's better to directly access _a? Or since there's a getter a(), it's a good practice using always and only the getter?
Anyone have any tips for good practice with using event listeners? I've gotten into the habit for checking for event listeners (hasEventListener()) prior to removing them, but no errors are thrown if you try to remove an event listener that does not exist, so should I even bother?
Also, I've often gotten into the habit of checking for a listener prior to adding it sometimes, just to make sure I'm not adding it twice (mostly due to slightly sloppy code when they're added/removed on an as-needed basis). But doing a quick test, it seems this is also not needed. It seems adding an event listener of the same type with the same handler twice overwrites the first:
I've been building Flash web sites for a long time now, as a freelance developer. I usually work alone, and so I'm the only one that touches the production work I do.Since I'm in this working position, I don't get a lot of exposure to other styles of flash production. I was wondering if any of you have examples of the best ways to produce high quality flash websites. I'm not talking about huge team projects, but small 40-50 work hour sites.[code]
I've noticed that some programmers animate objects based on the difference in time. I am not sure why or even if this is logical. Does anyone know the significance? Below is a snippet of code that explains what I mean:
When I create a website,I always end up with 2 preloaders... one to load the main swf (library items, etc...), and then a second preload takes place to load all the external images from XML.Is there a better way?I don't like the fact that there are two progress bars that run or a long pause in the beginning prior to the 2nd preloader. Please let me know if I'm missing something or if you follow any design patterns or best practices.I often run across sites that have one load and then images throughout the site load rather quickly.
I'm looking for a way to have an .mp3 file play in a website without relying on a flash-based player. I've searched w3 schools and every forum I can think of, but every media player I've found so far has been some sort of proprietary flash player.
Doesn't HTML support some sort of native player? I've found some that rely on Windows Media Player which is close, but I want the player to work on an iPhone and something tells me WMP won't get that done.
This is not an issue with action scripts it's regarding the privacy and secureness in a flash based website. WIll it cause any harm by giving someone the websites' FLA (just for checking purpose)? Can that person do any harm to the web in future? If yes, what are the possibilities? (online transactions, database info, virus, etc...)
I need to run a webservice from a webpage that is based on swf, the webpage is hosted localy on the same computer with the webservice, and is browsed from remote computers. I wanted to knoe thw proccess that runs on the page, if the page is run localy and localy it runs proccess of the swf or is loaded to the browser amd from there it performs opperations.
I've done my fair bit of HTML coding and work fairly well with CSS but i've never ever done a mouseover in flash.. Now, the website's text, all of it, is simply located on a text.txt file that the flash file reads and incorporates onto the website.. All text and images come from this text file. This is what I want to do.
Click on Enter site, then when it loads, click on the "Selling" tab at the top of the site. On the "My Listings" section is where I want to have the mouseover text and the "Market Analytics" section (which we'll be renaming) is where we'd like the image to actually appear. My question to you is can this be done within this environment and how so?
I can edit JavaScript somewhat, though its been a while.
I'm very new to flash and as3 design patterns. But I can read and write as3 quite ok, i've created small widgets with that. I've developed several web sites using php and also python.
Now for a educational cd-rom project i'm working on, i've basically designed all templates (A home page, a generic page with navigation and a sidebar - kind of like a wordpress blog). I have all the data for the cdrom on word files, which i intend to place on xml files.
My question is what is the best way to start a project like this? Can anyone guide me to a template or something that can be used for kickstarting this? kind of like a wordpress (without the admin)? Or am i on this all wrong?
Is it possible to make the flash content go back to some previous frame when the user clicks on the back button in the browser? Similarly, can the the refresh button be used to refresh to the same frame and not go back to the starting frame?
So I have a Flash CS3 based website and I am trying to add in a Flash Gallery.I designed the Flash Gallery as a seperate file and tried to copy the library items into my site file. I got it in, looked ok but when I ran the test it goes crazy and I get 7 actionsript
{Tweener.addTween(%2is is all the same on my errors: 1120: Acc0transition: "easeIn" } ); Tweener.add0mc, { alpha: 0.7, time: tween_duration,%2ion, transition: "easeOut" } ); TwTween( mc, { alpha: 1, time: tween_durat time: tween_duration, transition: "easeOut".ener.addTween( thumbnail_group, { alpha: 0.2, time: tween_duration, transition: "easeOut" } );[code]...........
Looking for a programming book that is in tutorial approach. Example this chapter teaches you how to do a login form. In the second chapter it teaches you how to integrate the login for to another app.Basically I'm looking for a book that teaches you real working application rather than abstract ideas. Programming language I have in mind is Adobe Air/Flex, Visual Basic. Functions I have in mind should at least cover Drag and Drops, Integration to a web form (form entry) and customizable interfaces.The languages i had in mind isn't fix. If you know a programming platform that has little code or easy to learn but still be able to develop a cool application.
I've been trying out Flash Builder for the first time and I can't seem to get it working...
First off I have these bits of very basic code:
[Code]...
Another key problem: Flash Builder cannot connect to the debugger, even though I've installed it twice now.Can anyone help me here? I've made sure my firewall is off, but could this be causing problems?
I have a website that has a Flash banner. For devices that do not support Flash (like iPads) I want to display an image instead. What is the best practice to deal with this situation? Should this be handled from the front-end with JavaScript?Should this rather be handled from the back-end? (I am using Java on the back-end)
I was wondering if it was possible to make a small script in Jquery that would change an image at a certain time. For my site, I want the image for the opening and closing of a facility to change when it opens and closes. Is this possible with Jquery or should I go with something else? Actionscript/Flash? I can't use PHP on the site...
Does anyone know how to resize a website's content proportionally based on the browser window's width and height? Also, the navigation can be repositioned accordingly based on the browser's size as well.[url]...Resize website content based on browser?
anyone know of a good resource for banner development tips and tricks - mainly in regards to image optimization, external imports and filesize reduction. Its been a while since i have looked into smart ways to pack more clarity and quality into flash banners and wanted to reach out.
And just loved the way it looked, anyone have any idea how to get a similar effect using ideally CSS/JS and if not then using flash? Furthermore it would be excellent if you could move to the next slide by clicking on the image itself.I'm also wondering how she is able to maintain height of the images when resizing (unless she is doing it manually which I doubt now days).
var i:Number = new Number(); trace("showarray length" + showArray.length); for(i=0;i<showArray.length;i++){[code].....
wherenever the if is satisfied it stops looping it immediately goes out of the loop.this is a sample output given that the length of showArray is 2 and num = 0
I'm trying to make flash animations w/ text. I don't know how to make buttons though so I can advance the movie. I really have NO idea so I need details on EVERYTHING past opening up a new as3 document.
I am only at the very beginning and I want to make certain that I go through this understanding everything that can so maybe I won't have to ask as many questions in the forums and can start answering more. In this part:The code for making a standard generic object in Flash is as follows:
myObject = new Object();
The variable myObject then becomes a object variable which can then have more variables added to it using dot syntax like so.Is myObject the actual name of the variable and the = new Object simply stating that there is a new object called myObject?
I started out learning AS3 on my own a while ago without any programming experience whatsoever. I'm still in my diapers, but slowly progressing. Currently I'm working on a short animation with some code involved. Part of the animation is a herd of cows grazing in a pasture. I have a class called Cow which extends MovieClip and on the Cow timeline I have the walk cycle and other cow movements animated. When a cow is walking it slowly moves horizontally, along the x axis. I want the cows, when walking to also randomly move up and down (along the y axis) which would basically look as though the cow is moving further away or moving closer towards us. I'll be resizing each cow, according to its y position to create the effect of perspective (near and far).
What I'm trying to figure out is how to make the cow move either up or down the y axis in a somewhat random way. By "somewhat random" I mean that I don't want the cow to switch directions every second, but rather something like: 5 seconds moving up the y axis, then maybe 8 seconds moving down, then possibly 4 up, then 11 down, etc. It would be super if I could also have a velocity factor involved, meaning that when changing directions - from up to down, or down to up - I prefer that the change is smooth, like as in a ease out and then ease in.
I'm trying to get to grips with having a function that can accept an input that is passed to it as it is called, and then use that input in its workings.As I'm writing more code, it's becoming clear that this is something that I need to pick up, but despite reading and playing about with it, I'm still a little confused.The code is designed for a character's "level up" screen. When the button next to a stat is pressed, I want it to pass the name of that stat to the statUp function, which will increase the selected stat by one.In my main file I have this code, to call the function when the button is pressed. (In this example, it is the Strength button)
