ActionScript 3 - First Steps…

QLOD (Quit living on dreams) has posted a series of useful articles detailing some first steps with ActionSctript 3.0. Here's they are collected as a series for you..

QLOD's links...

• First Steps I
• First Steps II
• First Steps III
• First Steps IV
• First Steps V
• First Steps VI
• First Steps VII
• First Steps VIII
• First Steps IX
• First Steps X
• First Steps XI
• First Steps XII
• First Steps XIII
• First Steps XIV
• First Steps XV

A great little series of articles.

3 comments December 26th, 2006

Tamarin Project

Adobe and Mozilla announced that Adobe will contribute source code from the latest Adobe® ActionScript™ Virtual Machine (AVM2), the standards-based scripting language engine in Adobe Flash® Player 9, to a new open source project known as Tamarin that will be hosted by the Mozilla Foundation.

AVM2, as currently shipping in Adobe Flash Player 9, was built from the ground up to work with the next generation of ActionScript. The new virtual machine is designed to deliver the performance and features to support the needs of rich Internet application developers. Source code from AVM2 being contributed to the Tamarin project implements ECMAScript 4th edition language features such as namespaces, classes, and optional strongly typed variables, and includes a Just In Time (JIT) compiler that translates ActionScript bytecode to native machine code for maximum execution speed.

The Tamarin project will result in an ECMAScript 4th edition engine that Mozilla will use within the next-generation of SpiderMonkey, the core JavaScript engine embedded in Firefox®, Mozilla’s free Web browser, and other products based on Mozilla technology. The code will continue to be used by Adobe as part of the ActionScript Virtual Machine.

Read more, visit the Tamarin FAQ

Add comment November 8th, 2006

OSS Remoting round-up

AMFPHP

AMFPHP provides a server-side data transport layer, which enables server process calls that return objects which are native to the Flash platform, no XML or other text based format deserialising needs to take place. The advantages should be obvious.

• http://www.amfphp.org/ - Homepage
• http://aralbalkan.com/529 - Comparison of OSS and Remoting options in use (AMFPHP outnumbers other options by 3:1)

Red5

Red5 is a very ambitious project which is still at the 0.5 / 0.6 development so not quite ready for primetime at this stage, even so, it is looking like a very promising OSS replacement for Flash Comm Server. I will be keeping an eye on this and see how it matures, it provides all the additional multimedia functionality that FlashComm Server provides (ie. Video and Audio streaming) as well as the regular AMF data transport.

• OSFlash red5 page
• EvilCode.net's post on red5

The rest

There are a few other AMF / Remoting options available...

• PHPObject - Homepage
• OpenAMF (Java) - on Sourceforge
  • Darron Schall's notes on OpenAMF - Here
• Fluorine (.NET / C#) - Homepage
  • 5etdemi's (5 1/2) Fluorine post - Here

1 comment October 25th, 2006

ActionScript 3.0 links - update.

The collection of AS3.0 links continues to expand...

• Adobe's ActionScript 3.0 Overview
• Programming ActionScript 3.0
• ActionScript 3.0 Livedocs
• Tips for learning ActionScript 3.0
• AS3.0 Class libraries at Adobe Labs
  • Corelib
  • FlexUnit
  • Flickr
  • Mappr
  • RSS
  • Odeo
  • YouTube
• ActionScript 3.0 Sample files
• Exploring the Flash Professional 9 ActionScript 3.0 Preview
• Using the Timer Class in ActionScript 3.0
• Playing FLV with AS3.0
• Creating click-able MovieClips with AS3.0
• Creating new MovieClips in AS3.0
• Reading MP3 ID3 tags with AS3.0
• AS3.0 SoundMixer Class
• Just MXML & ActionScript 3.0
• AS3 Resource Management - by Grant Skinner
  • Part 1: The FP9 Garbage Collector
  • Part 2: Resource Management Issues in FP9
  • Part 3: New Tools in AS3
• ActionScript 3.0 New Capabilities - By FlashGuru (From the 8.5 player release.)
• Senoculars AS3.0 tip of the day - On Kirupa.com
  • 06-19-06: Change the frame rate of your movie
  • 06-20-06: Class scope is now bound to class methods
  • 06-21-06: Graphics Object and the Drawing API
  • 06-22-06: New Variable Types
  • 06-23-06: Display Objects
  • 06-24-06: New Import Directive
  • 06-25-06: Type Casting and the as Operator
  • 06-26-06: Unique Class Variables
  • 06-27-06: New MouseMove Behavior
  • 06-28-06: The delete Keyword and Class Members
  • 06-29-06: The Dictionary Class
  • 06-30-06: Label Statements
  • 07-01-06: Detecting When the Mouse Leaves the Movie
  • 07-02-06: SimpleButton Instances
  • 07-03-06: Commas in Shorthand Array Definitions
  • 07-04-06: Package Block
  • 07-05-06: Same-file Helper Classes
  • 07-06-06: Access Attributes
  • 07-07-06: Abstract Classes
  • 07-08-06: The override Keyword
  • 07-09-06: Using prototype
  • 07-10-06: Regular Expression (RegExp) Support
  • 07-11-06: Approach to Depth Sorting
  • 07-12-06: Deep Object Copies with ByteArray
  • 07-13-06: Similarly Named Instance and Static Properties
  • 07-14-06: EventDispatcher
  • 07-15-06: Events and Event Types
  • 07-16-06: Writing Inline XML
  • 07-17-06: Determine Instance Class or Superclass
  • 07-18-06: super() Placement (Now Anywhere)
  • 07-19-06: Determining Current Frame Label
  • 07-20-06: Multiple Arguments in trace()
  • 07-21-06: Calling Event Handlers without Events
  • 07-22-06: URLRequest for URL Strings
  • 07-23-06: XML vs. XMLDocument
  • 07-24-06: Loading Text and XML with URLLoader
  • 07-25-06: is Operator (vs instanceof)
  • 07-26-06: Flash 9: Timelines as Classes
  • 07-27-06: RegExp: Email Validation
  • 07-28-06: Render Event
  • 07-29-06: XML: @ Operator for Attributes
  • 07-30-06: Event Propagation Support
  • 07-31-06: Get Sound Spectrum Information
  • 08-01-06: Number() Conversion No Longer Interprets Octals
  • 08-02-06:Garbage Collection: Reference Counting & Mark and Sweep
  • 08-03-06: Weak References
  • 08-04-06: Flash 9: BitmapData and Bitmaps from the Library
  • 08-05-06: Changes in typeof
  • 08-06-06: getBounds() vs getRect()
  • 08-07-06: for..in and for each..in
  • 08-08-06: Default Values for Function Parameters
  • 08-09-06: Undetermined Number of Arguments With ...(rest)
  • 08-10-06: arguments
  • 08-11-06: Support for Namespaces
  • 08-12-06: Namespaces: Name Qualifier Operator (::)
  • 08-13-06: dynamic is Not Inherited
  • 08-14-06: Creating a mouseWithin Event
  • 08-15-06: Prevent Overriding and Subclassing with final
  • 08-16-06: MXMLC: SWF Metadata Tag
  • 08-17-06: Proxy Class
  • 08-18-06: in Operator
  • 08-19-06: Proxy: getProperty and setProperty
  • 08-20-06: Flash 9: Display Object Variables and Instance Names
  • 08-21-06: XML: XML and XMLList
  • 08-22-06: Constants
  • 08-23-06: duplicateMovieClip Replacement
  • 08-24-06: Proxy: callProperty
  • 08-25-06: Creating graphics Copies
  • 08-26-06: TextField.appendText()
  • 08-27-06: include Directive
  • 08-28-06: Duplicate Variable Definitions
  • 08-29-06: mouseEnabled and Event Blocking
  • 08-30-06: mouseChildren with Event Propagation
  • 08-31-06: rollOver and rollOut vs. mouseOver and mouseOut
  • 09-01-06: DisplayObjectContainer contains()
  • 09-02-06: Cleaning Up Event Listeners
  • 09-03-06: Detecting Addition to or Removal from Stage
  • 09-04-06: Event Phases and Event Capturing
  • 09-05-06: Determining Event Phase
  • 09-06-06: Preventing Event Propagation
  • 09-07-06: Global Events
  • 09-08-06: Detecting a mouseUp Outside
  • 09-09-06: Flash 9: Document Class
  • 09-10-06: Access to stage and root
  • 09-11-06: Namespaces: use namespace Directive
  • 09-12-06: No More Color Class; Use ColorTransform
  • 09-13-06: Runtime Errors; Error Class
  • 09-14-06: Errors: try..catch..finally and Exception Handling
  • 09-15-06: Errors: Asynchronous Exception Handling
  • 09-16-06: XML: Children (.) and Decendants (..)
  • 09-17-06: Array.indexOf (Array.lastIndexOf())
  • 09-18-06: asfunction: Now event:
  • 09-19-06: Proxy: Property Enumeration (nextName(), nextValue(), and nextNameIndex())
  • 09-20-06: Event Capturing and mouseEnabled
  • 09-21-06: Flash 9: Strict Mode
  • 09-22-06: System.totalMemory
  • 09-23-06: Closing Net Connections
  • 09-24-06: Timer Class
  • 09-25-06:AVM2 (AS3) to AVM1 (AS2/AS1) Communication via LocalConnection
  • 09-26-06:ByteArray Class
• E4X Specification - The AS3.0 XML standard
• ECMA-262 Standard - The basis for AS3.0

If you find any that aren't listed, go ahead and post them to the comments list...

4 comments September 22nd, 2006

Good Times….

After a slight panic during the week, all the Flickr tools hosted here on mentalaxis are now working fine again...

I'd managed to neglect checking the latest news about the Flickr API and missed the notice informing the developer community about an upcoming change of server for Flickr API calls.

I realise that many of you would have been a bit confused (angry?) when your badgr installs stopped working, and I'm very sorry I wasn't prepared for the update, if you're using a downloaded .SWF of badgr or badgr2.0 you can download the updated one from the link below.

Thanks again to everyone who's using badgr.

By the way, if you missed my recent announcement, badgr2.0 is now configured to work with FlashPlayer 8 and up, this is in preparation for the new image size updates which are being developed at the moment, there's a tech demo here.

Download the updated badgr2.swf

2 comments August 26th, 2006