I use the slide to give a tutorial of ActionScript in the freshman training course of Intelligent Agent Laboratory in Computer Science Department of National Taiwan University. It is the second session of the Flash-ActionScript-Flex class.

1. Coding Flash :
ActionScript(3.0) Tutorial
Pei-Yao (Perry) Hung
peiyaoh@umich.edu
School of Information, University of Michigan

2. Outline
• ActionScript Basics
• Interface & Animation
• Reference

3. ActionScript Basics

4. Basics I
• Variable Declaration :
• var i:Number;
• Flow Control
• for, if-else, ...
• Code Using
• include “your_code_filename”

5. Basic II
• Function Declaration
• function MyFunction(i:Number):Number
• function function_name(parameter:
parameter_type): return_value_type
• Command-line Message Output
• trace(“Print message : ” + your_msg)

6. Basic III
• Class, Package Using
• import your_class_name
• Inherit
• a_class_name extends b_class_name
• Return Value
• return return_value

7. Sample Code List
• HelloWorld.*: use code in .fla
• HelloWorld2.*: use “include” to use .as
• HelloWorld3.*: use “import” to use .as
• HelloWorld4.*: use “extends” to use .as

8. Interface & Animation

9. DisplayObject
Components you can see

10. Display Object
Hierarchy I
• All the display objects on the screen are
organized through parent - child
relationship (start from “root”)
• Only display objects in the display hierarchy
will be displayed
• Children work as a group( under same
parent ) with parent. ex. move, resize ...

11. Display Object
Hierarchy II
Parent’s Parent
Parent
Child Child

12. Display Object
Hierarchy III
• Code : use parent.addChild(child) to form
the parent-child relationship
• The last added child is the top most child
you can see (with the biggest z-index)
• Demo : ParentChild.fla (Key:
Up,Down,Left,Right,Space,Shift,b,l,a,A,v,r)

13. Interaction
Respond to the Event

14. Event I
• MouseEvent
• Down, Move, Up, Click ...
• KeyboardEvent
• Down, UP, ...

15. Event II
• Registers to event with event handler
• addEventListener(event:String,
eventHandler)
• Unregisters event handler to event
• removeEventListener(event:String,
eventHandler)
• Demo : ParentChild.fla

16. MovieClip
Display Object container with canvas and frames

17. MovieClip I
• Basic Property
• x, y, width, height, rotation
• scaleX, scaleY
• mouseX, mouseY
• alpha, visible
• Demo : ParentChild.fla

18. MovieClip II
• Use property “graphics” to draw line
• lineStyle() : line setting
• moveTo() : moves your pen
• lineTo() : draws the line (start from
where your pen is)
• Demo : MovieClipCanvas.fla

19. MovieClip III
• Use property “graphics” to fill region
• beginFill() : fill setting
• Draw line as border of the region
• endFill() : fill the region
• clear() : clear your drawing and setting
• Demo : MovieClipCanvas.fla

20. MovieClip IV
• Detect collision between movieclip
• mc1.hitTestObject( mc2 )
• check if bounding box overlapped
• mc1.hitTestPoint( x, y, shapFlag:boolean)
• use shapFlag to determine whether to
check the actual pixel instead of
bounding box.

21. MovieClip V
• Play with Scene, Frame
• gotoAndPlay(frame_number,
"scene_name");
• stop() : stop in the current frame
• Demo : BatBirdGame.fla
• Scene, Frame, library component extends
class

22. There are still many
useful classes ...

23. Useful Classes
• SharedObject : act like cookie
• Mask : reveal only some part of display
object
• Timer : do things periodically
• TransitionManager : apply some typical
animation without too much effort

24. Library
Other talented developers already done them

25. Other Library I
• as3corelib : Conatins png, jpeg encoder, ...
• http://code.google.com/p/as3corelib/
• papervision3d : 3D engine
• http://code.google.com/p/papervision3d/

26. Other Library II
• Adobe AIR : Build Desktop Application
• http://www.adobe.com/products/air/
• mdm : Build Executable (.exe)
• http://www.multimedia.com/

27. Still not satisfied?
Find other learning resource & reference

28. Reference Books
• Essential ActionScript 3.0
• Breadth
• ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook
• Quick manual, classic sample code

29. Reference Webpages I
• Flash Help
• ActionScript 3.0 Language and
Components Reference
• Programming ActionScript 3.0
• Adobe AIR:
• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AS3LCR/
Flash_10.0/index.html

30. Reference Webpages II
• Papervision3d
• http://www.papervision3d.org/docs/as3/
• MDM
• http://multidmedia.com/support/livedocs/

31. Reference Blogs
• My Flash Note : http://flashpeiyaoh.blogspot.com/
• http://qops.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• http://ticore.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• http://erinylin.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• http://www.luar.com.hk/flashbook/index.rdf
• http://blog.yam.com/rss.php?blog_id=milkmidi&ver=2.0
• http://benbenstudio.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
• http://diary.tw/allenliao/index.xml

32. Q &A

33. Thanks