Foundation ActionScript 3.0 for Flash and Flex (eBook)

CONTENTS AT A GLANCE 4
CONTENTS 5
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 15
ABOUT THE COVER IMAGE DESIGNER 16
LAYOUT CONVENTIONS 17
1 GETTING STARTED WITH ACTIONSCRIPT 3.0 19
A brief history of ActionScript 20
The rise of ActionScript 3.0 20
ActionScript and object-oriented programming 22
The development process 22
Organizing your files 25
Adding ActionScript to your projects 26
Bouncing balls 33
ActionScript in action 39
Summary 39
2 ACTIONSCRIPT 3.0 FUNDAMENTALS 41
Statements and expressions 42
Introducing variables 43
Using constants 51
Performing operations 52
Introducing arrays 55
Making decisions 59
Looping the loop 65
Introducing functions 72
Commenting your code 82
Summary 85
3 OBJECTS AND CLASSES 87
iPod analogy 88
Working with objects 89
Creating your first class 98
Adding properties 100
Adding methods 102
Controlling access to properties and methods 107
Adding getter/setter methods 109
Static properties and methods 113
Taking advantage of inheritance 114
Using packages to group your classes 119
Removing dependency on timeline code 122
Summary 122
4 WORKING WITH THE DISPLAY 125
Introducing the display list 126
Working with display objects 128
Specifying blend modes 146
Working with filters 148
Accessing the stage 163
Using Library resources 168
Loading from external files 171
Making things move 174
Summary 178
Why we need a drawing API 180
5 CREATING VECTOR GRAPHICS WITH THE DRAWING API 180
Understanding the drawing API 183
Setting up Mr. Smiley 183
Drawing lines 185
Drawing and filling shapes 192
Simplifying the code 206
Creating gradient line styles 208
Flash 3D 214
Summary 218
6 USER INTERACTION AND MORE WITH EVENTS 220
Understanding events 221
Using events with the display list 231
Capturing and bubbling: the event flow 254
Summary 258
Video on the modern Web 260
7 WORKING WITH VIDEO 260
Encoding your video 262
Delivering your video 269
Using ActionScript to play videos 273
Building a video player 289
Summary 315
8 USING AUDIO 317
Importing and converting sound files 318
Using ActionScript to play sound 321
Building a sound player 337
Summary 369
9 WORKING WITH COMPONENTS 371
Just what are components? 372
Benefits of working with components 378
Exploring the Flash component framework 378
Scripting interaction 390
Styling and skinning 397
Creating components from scratch 408
Using third-party components 419
Summary 419
10 REGULAR EXPRESSIONS 421
Why you need regular expressions 422
Introducing the RegExp class 424
Anatomy of a regular expression pattern 425
Understanding the e-mail regular expression pattern 437
Changing regular expression behavior with modifiers 438
Using variables to build a regular expression 442
Useful regular expressions 443
Regular expression resources 443
Summary 444
11 USING XML 446
Understanding XML and E4X 447
Accessing an XML file 449
Reading the XML 451
Searching XML 454
Modifying XML 458
Summary 461
12 CASE STUDY: CREATING A DYNAMIC IMAGE VIEWER 463
An overview of the image viewer 464
Laying out the interface 465
Creating the document class 470
Loading image data 475
Displaying images 482
Adding graphic enhancements 486
Summary 495
13 GETTING STARTED WITH FLEX 498
Introducing Flex 499
Understanding rich Internet applications 499
Meet the (Flex) family 499
Getting started with the Flex SDK 502
Getting started with Flex Builder 509
Summary 519
14 FLEX BY EXAMPLE 521
Planning the application 522
Setting up the project 526
Creating the basic UI 528
Creating basic feed integration 530
Creating the Subscription class 534
Completing the Subscriptions panel 554
Completing the Articles and Article panels 571
Improving the feed reader 578
Summary 578
INDEX 580