Actionscript Training Course

Actionscript Course Contents

Part 1: Start From the Beginning!

What is Actionscript?

• Actionscript and Flash
• Configuring Document Settings
• Building a Flash File
• Actionscript on the Timeline
• Keeping Things Organised

Actionscript Syntax

• Commenting on Actionscript
• Actionscript Variables and Assigning Memory
• Data Types: String, Number, Int, Uint and Boolean
• Complex Data Types and Date
• What is Instantiation?
• Trace Command and its Importance
• Introduction to Arrays

Stage Control

• Width and Height of the Stage
• Stage Properties – frameRate, fullScreenWidth, fullScreenHeight, displayState and wmodeGPU
• Using Math.random() to Control Stage Dimensions
• Creating Multiple Stages Using Loops and NumChildren
• Keeping Clean Code

Why Use Functions?

• Creating Functions
• Calling Functions
• Function Parameters Explained

Visual Control with Actionscript

• The Importance of Instance Names
• Strong Typing
• Defining Aliases in Code
• Accessing Named Objects

All About Buttons!

• Designing a Button
• Alpha and Tint
• Bevel, Drop Shadow and Blur
• Creating Stop Movie Buttons
• Creating Restart Movie Buttons
• Changing the Cursor
• Buttons with Sound
• Dealing with Button Modes
• Adding Mouse Events
• Handling Mouse Events
• Removing Mouse Events

Mouse Events Extended

• Mouse Down and Mouse Up
• Dragging and Dropping Elements
• Creating the Drag Area
• Preventing Problems
• Arranging Items Order

Part 2. The Beginning of OOP(Object Oriented Programming)

Coding to Draw

• Introduction to Drawing with Actionscript
• Turning Drawings into Objects
• Creating Classes
• The Constructor
• Creating Shapes
• Actionscript Drawing API
• Placing the Objects to Stage
• Using Math.random() Again to Place it Randomly
• Gradient Fill
• Tint with Random Colours
• Using Easing to Implement Gravity
• Using Graphics in the Library
• Instance Variables – Public and Private
• Using Code to Take Charge of Stage

Controlling Object Behaviours

• What is Inheritance?
• Drawing UML Diagrams
• Drag and Drop Movieclip Class
• Using Inheritance to Apply the Class
• Testing Behaviours
• Controlling the Whole Movie
• What is the Document Class?
• Audio Volume Control
• Loading and Playing Audio Files
• Event Listeners for Audio Files

Keeping Things Moving

• Moving Objects
• What are Setters and Getters?
• The Enter Frame Event
• Using The Enter Frame Event
• What is a Protected Function?
• Using Protected Function to Handle the Event
• The Point Class and Trigonometry

Monitoring Objects

• Instance vs. Class Variables
• Static Variable Management in a List
• Looping Through the Array on Enter Frame
• What is Collision Detection?
• Hit Testing
• Handling the Collision
• Notification of the Collision
• Handling the Notification

Using the Web Camera

• Connecting to Your Web Camera
• Taking a Picture with Your Camera
• Saving the Picture
• Displaying the Picture

Building a Video Player

• Building a Simple Interface
• Creating a Play / Pause Button
• Loading an FLV File
• Converting Videos to FLV

Part 3: A Whole New Project

• Let’s Create a New Project
• Planning Our Project
• Drawing Diagrams
• Creating Designs
• Configuring Files
• Configuring Document Settings
• Creating the Scenes
• Working with Layers
• Creating our Navigation
• Creating Content for Pages
• Using Classes to Load Content

Preloader

• Creating Animated Preloaders
• Designing Our Preloader
• Connecting Preloader and Main Movie
• Calculating Percentages and Displaying it
• PreloadedDocument Base Class
• Using Inheritance to Implement Class
• Controlling with Coding
• Testing and Simulating Download

Building Our Navigation and Pages

• Mouse Events Revisited
• Using a Switch Case
• Loading a page
• Building Up Our Pages
• Creating Separate Movies for Pages
• Publishing them All Together
• Implementing Our Preloader
• Testing Individual Movies

All About Dynamic Textfields

• From Static to Dynamic
• Using HTML for Formatting
• Loading from a TXT File
• Font Embedding
• Scrolling the Text Box
• Part 4: More OOP and Design Patterns
• Design Patterns Explained
• Introduction to MVC (Model-View-Controller)
• Singleton Pattern
• Factory and Template Method Patterns
• Iterator Pattern
• Composite Pattern
• Decorator Pattern

Working with Events

• Understanding Event Phases
• The Target Phase
• The Bubble Phase
• Creating Event Dispatchers
• Understanding Event Objects and Event Target Properties
• Dispatching Events Through Inheritance
• The IEventDispatcher Interface
• Dynamic Data

Loading Text

• Sending and Loading Variables
• Sending and Loading XML
• Optimizing Data Communication
• Caching Data
• Queuing and Pooling Requests

XML

• Creating XML Objects
• Property Accessors
• XML Filtering
• Iterating Through an XMLList
• Namespaces

Projects in ActionScript

Project 1. Create your own personalised button.

Project 2. Create a basic website with a pre-loader and load the content using XML.