The ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide: For Developers and Designers Using Flash: For Developers and Designers Using Flash CS4 Professional (Adobe Developer Library) [Paperback]

David Stiller (Author), Rich Shupe (Author), Jen deHaan (Author), Darren Richardson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Adobe Developer Library | Publication Date: October 24, 2008

"No matter what your background, the pages that follow will provide you with some excellent knowledge, insight, and even a little bit of wisdom in the realm of Flash and ActionScript. Happy learning!" -- Branden Hall, from the Foreword

Written by Flash insiders with extensive knowledge of the technology, this guide is designed specifically to help Flash designers and developers make the leap from ActionScript 2.0 to the new object-oriented ActionScript 3.0 quickly and painlessly. Formatted so you can find any topic easily, ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide explains:

• Object-oriented programming (OOP) concepts, such as packages and classes
• ActionScript 3.0 features and player enhancements that improve performance
• Workflow differences between ActionScript 2.0 and ActionScript 3.0 including tools, code editing, component sets, and image and font rendering
• Where did it go? A guide to help you find familiar features in ActionScript 3.0, such as global functions, operators, properties, and statements
• How do I? Step-by-step solutions for performing tasks with ActionScript 3.0, including input, sound, video, display, events, text, and more

Also included are overviews of Flash and ActionScript features and workflows. ActionScript 3.0 is a huge upgrade to Flash's programming language -- and this guide helps you upgrade your skills to match it.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Stiller is a resident author at CommunityMX.com (over 50 articles), co-author of Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers (friends of ED) and contributor to How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS3 (Focal Press). He blogs regularly at quip.net/blog/ and is a longtime regular on the Adobe Flash and ActionScript support forums.

Rich Shupe is the co-author of Learning ActionScript 3.0 (O'Reilly) and has been teaching ActionScript programming to students of all levels since the language became available. He founded his own training and development company, FMA, in 1995 and is a faculty member of New York's School of Visual Arts' Computer Art Dept. He writes about ActionScript at http://www.LearningActionScript3.com.

Jen deHaan is a software quality engineer on the Flash authoring team at Adobe Systems, Inc. She is an author and co-author of 17 books (and tech editor for several others) over the past five versions of Flash. Jen's latest blog is at www.flashthusiast.com.

Darren Richardson is a technical editor for O'Reilly Media. He gained high visibility among Flash and ActionScript developers by writing over 50 articles for Web Designer Magazine and community-related sites. He can be found on a nearly daily basis blogging at www.playfool.com/blog/

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Adobe Developer Library; 1 edition (October 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596517351
• ISBN-13: 978-0596517359
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #271,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #55 in Books > Computers & Technology > Graphic Design > Web Design > Flash

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable, Fun, Good Code, a Must-Have, December 21, 2008

By 

MARGOT SHEEHAN (Gotham City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide: For Developers and Designers Using Flash: For Developers and Designers Using Flash CS4 Professional (Adobe Developer Library) (Paperback)

I was browsing at Borders at Park Ave and 57th, where they had exactly one copy of this. I'd heard of this book but hadn't seen it yet--it was announced over the summer but O'Reilly kept delaying publication so the book could be current with Flash CS4. I looked up a few items in the ToC and index, and went straight to the checkout queue. I had to have this book right away! even if Amazon could sell it to me cheaper!

Okay, why is the book good? I've spent more time with it now. I'll give you my three biggest reasons:

1) It's readable. It really is. It's friendly and accessible. Did you ever enjoy those juvenile histories and biographies and How-and-Why science books that started out with something like, "Hi! This is a fun book, and we're going to take you on a fun journey, step-by-step. This is a great subject to be interested in! Aren't you happy? Well, we are!!!"?

Well, did you like books like that? I did, and I've always resented scholarly and technical books that didn't introduce themselves along those lines. So many of them are written like resentful documentation: "Go away. We hate you. This is only for ugly, squirrelly, socially backward people like US."

This book is overtly addressed to users of ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0, and those already using 3.0; to artists, designers, and developers of all stripes. It's all-inclusive. Like Rich Shupe's Learning ActionScript 3.0, it has a friendly, hand-holding attitude that goes through the length of the book.

2) A personal obsession: this book has a good section on how to write XML loaders that use HTML. This is a very poorly documented area of Flash. The ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook had a little bit on it, but the explanation was hard to follow and the code was buggy.

3) Another personal interest: SWF loaders and unloaders. This is the first book I've seen that tells you how to unload both the thing loaded and the "event listener" that keeps sitting there, using up processor time and space.

The book is also current with the less traditional Flash-related technologies, such as FlashDevelop and Flex.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Transitioning to AS3, November 19, 2008

By 

Paul Elwood (Lebanon, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide: For Developers and Designers Using Flash: For Developers and Designers Using Flash CS4 Professional (Adobe Developer Library) (Paperback)

Rich Shupe & crew have made a terrific guide for transitioning from AS2 to AS3. Their examples are clearly written, typically showing code written in both versions and pointing out the advantages of AS3 by comparison. Speaking as someone who uses flash as a designer primarily, his book as gone a great way towards making AS3 a lot less intimidating. Great job, highly recommend it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The title doesn't do justice to this amazing book, July 23, 2010

By 

Alex Kiriako - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The ActionScript 3.0 Quick Reference Guide: For Developers and Designers Using Flash: For Developers and Designers Using Flash CS4 Professional (Adobe Developer Library) (Paperback)

Flash/Actionscript has been in a constant change of flux, not only with new versions of the Flash IDE every year or two, but with a complete revamp into ActionScript 3.0. Even accomplished programmers first attempting to work with ActionScript 3.0 will face daunting roadblocks with mediocre IDEs, awful debuggers and disorganized documentation - all varying across multiple versions.

Also very discouraging is the vast amount of garbage on the web for Flash and AS3 programming. With approximately 3 million flash programmers (according to Adobe) the internet has tons of worthless and very confusing material to wade through to find useful answers. Which means if you're like most developers, and expect to use the internet to find answers to complex language and IDE issues you're frequently going to find yourself out of luck with respect to Flash and AS3.

That's where this book comes in. The authors have explained the history and structure of not only ActionScript but the various IDEs and available editors - clearly and simply. Frankly its been a god send towards my becoming effective as an ActionScript programmer. That's why I believe anyone working on their own to learn ActionScript for Flash and Flex will find no better alternative for navigating the extremely noisy legacy of Flash and ActionScript. For example, the Adobe migration guide from AS2 to AS3 doesn't hold a candle to the work of these authors for comprehensive clarity.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone learning AS3 after they've read something like "Learning ActionScript 3.0" by Rich Shupe and Zevan Roosser. The same goes for anyone transitioning from AS2 to AS3. In my opinion, this book sets new conceptual standards Adobe should be using for all their future language documentation. If you're past the first stages of trying to learn AS3 spare yourself ongoing grief and read this book cover to cover. It's that good.