The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript

By Paul Milbourne, Chris Kaplan, Michael Oliver, Serge Jespers

For any professional designer or developer working in the world of web technologies or multimedia, Flash is the must-have application, and knowing how to use it effectively is vital. Add in ActionScript 3.0, and Flash becomes an even more powerful tool for the development of high-performance web applications.

The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript introduces and explores the possibilities available to you through using Flash CS4. You will learn the basics of Flash's working environment and, using a step-by-step approach, work through the features of Flash and ActionScript needed to quickly achieve results. From navigating the interface to using graphic tools to write scripts and troubleshoot, you'll master all of the of deploying highly interactive applications with rich audio, video, and animation.

Written for the beginning-to-intermediate Flash user, this book uses complete examples that highlight best practices that you can apply to your daily work as a developer or designer in today's rich media world.

• Learn to create and manage assets in Flash using the graphics tools and the library.
• Acquire a comprehensive understanding of animation using the new Motion Editor and inverse kinematics tools.
• Discover the dynamic world of ActionScript development including classes, events, and XML.
• Learn to use and customize Flash's UI components.
• Become familiar with audio and video assets including preparation and integration.
• Debug, publish, and deploy Flash applications for the Web with Flash Player and the desktop using the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR).

Summary of Contents

• Part One: Basics
  • Chapter 1: How It All Began
  • Chapter 2: The New Interface of Flash CS4
  • Chapter 3: Drawing with Flash's Vector Tools
  • Chapter 4: External Assets and Symbol Management
  • Chapter 5: Working with Blends, Filters, and 3D Transformations
• Part Two: Animation
  • Chapter 6: Basic Animation in Flash
  • Chapter 7: Playing with Dolls: Introducing Flash IK
• Part Three: ActionScript
  • Chapter 8: The Programming Primer: A Flash Designer's Intro to ActionScript 3.0
  • Chapter 9: The Building Blocks of Interactivity
  • Chapter 10: Learning the Display Model and Bringing It All Together
  • Chapter 11: Managing External Assets and Communication
  • Chapter 12: XML: The Best Way In and Out of Flash
• Part Four: Additional User Interfaces
  • Chapter 13: Working with Text and Strings
  • Chapter 14: Using Components
• Part Five: Enhanced Media Development
  • Chapter 15: Using the Adobe Media Encoder—A Crash Course
  • Chapter 16: Working with Audio in Flash
  • Chapter 17: Working with Video in Flash
• Part Six: Preparing Your Project for Deployment
  • Chapter 18: Publishing, Exporting, and Debugging Your Flash Project
  • Chapter 19: Building AIR Applications with Flash CS4

This book is part of friends of ED's 'Essential Guide' series

The Essential Guide series takes a pragmatic approach to learning. We understand that you might not have the time or the inclination to read through a long book before you can get up and running, and we designed this series to give you the knowledge you want when you want it. The learning is always by example, with lots of code snippets that you can take with you and use in your own applications. The focus is on targeted learning for web professionals—providing the essential tools that the modern web developer needs. A book in this series won't focus as much on the basics as a Foundation book, but it will take you further, introducing some advanced topics that are essential for using a particular technology in the real world.