Author Archive for Rich

12
Mar

Advisory Board

By Rich 0 Comments
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Categories: General

We’re trying to organize possible improvements to our book, Learning ActionScript 3.0 (O’Reilly) and we’re looking for opinions about which changes are needed.

We hope to have exchanges with readers that have specific suggestions about ways to simplify, clarify, or otherwise improve the text. Our current thinking is that comments aren’t the best way to get this kind of detail, especially when we expect reader opinions to differ.

So, we’re planning to create an advisory board of sorts. We’re thinking about asking which chapters readers have had questions about, or possibly assign chapters to folks who might look for problem areas. Then we’re considering creating an email group of some kind where we can ask everyone to contribute to a topic, and follow-up with specific emails.

If you’re interested in improving LAS3, please use the contact form to send us an email. Let us know how you’d like to help, and how to get in touch. Please be sure to use the “Advisory Board LAS3″ subject so your email will be routed correctly.

We really want to consider reader opinions and try to develop improvements along requested lines. We hope you can help!

21
Sep

Inverse Kinematics in Flash CS4: FOTB’09

By Rich 0 Comments
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Categories: General

Over at LearningFlashCS4.com, I posted the files from my Flash on the Beach presentation on IK in Flash CS4 Pro. You can read about it here, and look for more posts on the subject in the future.

13
Jan

Wow. Flash on the Beach Miami

By Rich 4 Comments
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Categories: General

I just got a newsletter with a shocking tidbit. Flash on the Beach is offering an amazing 48-hour recession-beater discount as a thank you to the Flash community. Until midnight on January 14th, you can get a full three-day pass to the Miami conference for only $99! Check the other conferences out there. That is a GREAT deal, and this is one of the best shows around. Peruse the following for more information:

To get this deal, go to this page and use the code “RSKNUTS1″ at checkout.

UPDATE: The recession has hit everyone very hard and Flash on the Beach Miami is no exception. With everyone either forgoing travel and events, or waiting until the last minute to see how things play out, pre-registration was too low to proceed with the conference. John Davey, the event founder and organizer, felt that it was too risky to allow registrants to book possibly non-refundable flights, or to allow sponsors to commit funding, for fear of a possible later cancellation and the effect that would have on early adopters. As a gesture far too rare these days, he has given all early registrants not only a full refund, but a free pass to Flash on the Beach Brighton. Now that's class. We're sorry to see the event cancelled for 2009, but we sure are impressed at the way it was handled. Our sympathies to John for the iscal impact this decision probably had--another scar from financial world gone mad.
21
Nov

Flash on the U.S. Beach

By Rich 0 Comments
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Categories: General

I have been meaning to write about this for a while, but Flash on the Beach, the best Flash conference to date, is finally coming to the United States.

For some of us yanks, part of the charm of Flash on the Beach may be it’s Brighton, UK location, and we won’t lose that any time soon. There will still be a UK event a year from now. For others in our neck of the woods, traveling to England may not be affordable or may be a harder sell (psychologically) for employers, family, etc.–especially with the weakness of the economy.

Now, everyone can take advantage of these former liabilities by joining John Davey and his amazing crew in sunny Miami. Americans get home-field advantage, and everyone else gets to buy a few more rounds on the U.S. dollar.

There has never been a better time to commit to a Flash conference, for several reasons. Flash CS4 and Flash Player 10 are finally out, and bring with them a slew of new features and additional ActionScript classes to take advantage of. A lot of new projects are hitting, or soon to be hitting labs.adobe.com, such as Flex 4 (brewing nicely), Flash Catalyst (formerly Thermo), AIR 1.5, PixelBender, Cocomo, Alchemy (rock!), and much more.

Most importantly, perhaps, the big impact this economy is having on the job market means that being up to date, and networking with colleagues, peers, and even possible employers, has never been more important.

Those are some of the practical reasons you should go to Flash on the Beach. Some may argue that a better reason is that it’s so much damn fun. Everyone from the conference host and brain trust, John Davey, all the way across the board to the volunteer Lifeguards, work really hard to make this an intimate, fun event. John puts a limit on how large the event can be, he works really hard on carefully picking speakers and shaping topics, and he plans nighttime events that are purely social so everyone can connect. I don’t mean parties (of which there are nightly affairs) I mean “Inspired Sessions” where creative folk talk about their process and everyone gathers in one big theater to imbibe and enjoy.

Back to the capacity again, this idea has come up in discussion that John may impose a limit that he guards a little too aggressively. The past two years, Flash on the Beach has sold out well before it was scheduled to begin. That’s positively awesome for those that get tickets early because you can really meet the folks you’ve learned from and read about, connect with friends, and focus on content. Unfortunately, it also means that a lot of folks are left out every year. I got a lot of emails asking if I could get people into my AS3 workshop this year–something I had little to no influence over, I’m afraid.

So, if you’re thinking of going, be sure to act sooner, rather than later. Early-bird tickets are already on sale.

Here is a list of the speakers that have been announced so far (with more on the way). FotB usually gathers the best speakers from around the globe, and this event seems to be carrying that tradition forward.

  • Mark Anders
  • Carlo Blatz
  • Lee Brimelow
  • Rob Chiu
  • Brendan Dawes
  • Carla Diana
  • Julian Dolce
  • Joa Ebert
  • Chuck Freedman
  • Richard Galvan
  • Hoss Gifford
  • GMUNK Bradley Grosh
  • Branden Hall
  • Ralph Hauwert
  • Robert Hodgin
  • Elliott Hugh
  • Mike Jones
  • Mario Klingemann
  • Koen De Weggheleire
  • Lisa Larson-Kelley
  • Seb Lee-Delisle
  • Andre Michelle
  • Stacey Mulcahy
  • Chris Orwig
  • Robert Reinhardt
  • Rich Shupe
  • Grant Skinner
  • Geoff Stearns
  • Craig Swann
  • Jer Thorp
  • Carlos Ulloa
  • Dr. Woohoo!
You can even win a 3-day pass, if you have a blog or web site. Just display a linked event badge (see the badge on this page), let Flash on the Beach folks know about it, and you'll be entered into a drawing to win admission! Check out the info on the FotB site for more: Win a 3-day pass! 

(I wonder if we’re eligible to win?)

I hope to see you there!

13
Nov

Flash CS4 still uses AS3

By Rich 1 Comment
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Categories: General

I guess this is answer questions week. I seem to be writing a series of posts (more coming) written to address questions from multiple emails or conference appearances. This has to do with AS4/ECMA 4. If you frequent any of the blogs, forums, lists, or other sources for current Flash info, this post will not contain any new information. However, if you’re new to AS3 and have come to this site by way of our book, you will probably be reassured to know that Flash CS4 still uses ActionScript 3.

Flash CS4 does introduce some new classes and ActionScript features, but these are consistent with minor language updates that accompany most new authoring tool versions. Here’s a short round up of links that Mike Chambers put together and the new CS4/AS3 docs.

ActionScript 3.0 will likely remain the primary scripting language of the Flash Platform for at least another 18 months, if not longer. (This is assumed because Adobe tends to release product upgrades approximately every 18 months). Furthermore, if the next version of Flash (or another Flash Platform app, such as Flex) introduces ActionScript 4, it will likely be an expansion of AS3. That is, AS3 is probably the last major language rewrite for quite some time, so now is a great time to invest in learning ActionScript 3.

On a loosely related note (and, again, nothing new for the community-aware), the recent rejection of the ECMA 4 proposal will likely have little impact on ActionScript. Here’s a bit more on the subject, also from Mr. Chambers.

11
Nov

Passing Arguments with Events

By Rich 25 Comments
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Categories: Ch03: Properties, Methods, Events

One of the questions about ActionScript 3 that I am most often asked is how to send arguments to a listener function along with an event. Recently, a reader named Jim asked just such a question.

To provide some background for this question, you could send argument data to a standard function like this?

function showMsg(msg:String):void {
    trace(msg);
}
showMsg("Claire");

However, in an event listener, only one argument is allowed in the listener function: the argument responsible for receiving the event data. Using a standard mouse click listener as an example…

stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, showMsg, false, 0, true);
function showMsg(evt:MouseEvent):void {
    trace("hello");
}

…the kind of question asked is, can you do something like this:

stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, showMsg, "hello",
                       false, 0, true);
function showMsg(evt:MouseEvent, msg:String):void {
    trace(msg);
}

The answer is, not out of the box. The existing AS3 events do not provide for this capability. However, to answer Jim’s question, the best way to pass arguments with an event is to create your own event class by extending AS3’s Event class.

Continue reading ‘Passing Arguments with Events’

26
Apr

Opinions from AS3 Teachers Wanted

By Rich 13 Comments
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Categories: General

If you are a teacher or trainer currently using Learning ActionScript 3.0 in a class, please get in touch. We are considering developing additional teaching resources (we have nothing created as of yet) and are anxious to know what you think would help you most. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the book? What tools will help you in your teaching? Any opinions will be appreciated!

If you’re a student using Learning ActionScript 3.0 in a class, please let us know what kinds of class resources you think would be useful, and tell your instructor we’re looking for input!

23
Apr

Looking Forward to Flashbelt

By Rich 0 Comments
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Categories: Training

We’re very happy to announce that I’ll be conducting a workshop on ActionScript 3.0 at this year’s Flashbelt conference in Minneapolis. It’s a full-day workshop based on the book, teaching the fundamentals of AS3 with lots of examples and, of course, free source code.

This will be my first time at Flashbelt, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve heard very high praise about the show—praise that grows year over year—and I dig Flashbelt’s El Hefe, Dave Schroeder. In addition to putting together Flashbelt, Dave is also the brains and talent behind Pilotvibe, a groovy place to get you some Flash sound.

From everything I’ve heard, Flashbelt is a happenin’ gig, that has an intimate feel and a stellar group of presenters. This year is no exception. Presenters include Mark Anders, Julian Dolce, JR Fabito, Richard Galvan, Moses Gunesch, Joshua Hirsch, Robert Hodgin, Mario Klingemann, Tali Krakowsky, Dan Lacivita, Lisa Larson-Kelley, Seb Lee-Delisle, Andre Michelle, Stacey Mulcahy, Erik Natzke, Paul Ortchanian, Danny Patterson, Todd Perkins, Robert Reinhardt, Rich Shupe, Geoff Stearns, Mate Steinforth, Zach Stepek, Craig Swann, Jared Tarbell, Dustin Tauer, Jeremy Thorp, and Philip Van Allen.

This year, the event is June 8-11, and I hope to see you there.

26
Mar

AS3 Components and TxEff

By Rich 4 Comments
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Categories: Components

Recently I’ve been trying to put together a collection of AS3 components for some writing and training I’m doing about… er… AS3 components. I want to write a series of posts here, but I also have another column, book, and video training in the works, in which they may appear. With a fair amount of focus on this effort, I wanted to look around for some great examples, ranging from open source to commercial, simple to advanced.

In the process, I happened upon TxEff from Jumpeye Components. TxEff is a spectacular text-effects component with a really great configuration utility that allows you to easily modify all the effects without writing any code. You can also configure the effects without the utility using XML. Written in AS3, it performs really well and Jumpeye did a great job, soup to nuts. You can even add on to the component with additional effects.

I haven’t been able to try any of the additional effect libraries, but I decided to try a simple test that fits in well with the first post in this series. I wanted to see how easy it would be to create a simple effect using the online utility. I wanted to create something that anyone could do, right out o the box. I was pretty impressed with how easy it was to adjust the many parameters and found myself with the problem of too much goodness to choose from. Then I decided to test the defaults of one of the new effects, 3DCamFocus. Here it is:

Continue reading ‘AS3 Components and TxEff’

12
Jan

Chapter 3 Document Classes

By Rich 2 Comments
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Categories: Ch03: Properties, Methods, Events

Thanks to Nick, we discovered an error in the document classes that accompany the source code for Chapter 3. The error has been corrected, and the archive has been replaced. This has nothing to do with the book, so this only applies to those early coders who downloaded the Chapter 3 source archive prior to January 12, 2008.

We introduce syntax and concepts early on in a way that allows us to focus closely on the topics themselves, without having to dive immediately into classes. We then use classes more and more as we progress through the chapters.

However, if you already have some experience with classes (or want to start pushing yourself to this ideal early on), we also provide a second copy of all the timeline examples, using document classes instead. This way you can experiment with both approaches and pick the style that suites you best at the outset of the book.

So, none of the timeline examples were affected and, if you only need to think about this if you downloaded the Chapter 3 archive before January 12th.

Thanks Nick!

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