ActionScript Programming

ActionScript is a scripting language developed by Adobe (formerly Macromedia) for its Flash animation studio. ActionScript is similar to JavaScript with its syntax and functionality. The latest version, ActionScript 3.0, released together with Flash CS3, emphasizes Object oriented programming more so than previous versions. ActionScript is a proprietary language designed to control animations and create advanced interactive applications such as slide-shows, games, quizzes, tutorials, and websites. ActionScript 3.0 has grown substantial capabilities in comparison with previous versions. ActionScript may be difficult to learn for beginners with no programming experiencing, however, it becomes easier to grasp with repeated practice and use.

This tutorial is designed for use with Actionscript 2.0. Changes for ActionScript 3.0 will be listed as well.

Table of Contents

Part I

• PartI/Getting Started
• AS In A Nutshell

Chapter 1 - Properties

• Page 1:
  • X, Y Coordinates
  • Width, Height Measures
  • XScale, YScale
  • Visible
  • Rotation
  • Quality
  • Name
  • Alpha
• Page 2:
  • XMouse, YMouse
  • CurrentFrame
  • TotalFrames
  • URL
  • Target
  • DropTarget
  • FocusRect
  • FramesLoaded
  • SoundBufTime

Chapter 2

• Operators (1)
• Comments

Chapter 3 – Data types

• General and difference between Number and String data types
• String
  • Methods
    • charAt
    • charCodeAt
    • concat
    • fromCharCode
    • indexOf
    • lastIndexOf
    • slice
    • split
    • substr
    • substring
    • toLowerCase
    • toUpperCase
  • Properties
    • length
• Number
  • Methods
    • toStringtoString
    • valueOf
• Boolean
  • Methods
    • toString
    • valueOf
• Date
  • Methods
• Arrays
  • Properties
    • Length
  • Methods
    • concat
    • join
    • pop
    • push
    • reverse
    • shift
    • slice
    • sort
    • sortOn
    • splice
    • toString
    • unshift
• String.split (method)
• Objects
• Scopes of variables
• Global variables
• Timeline variables
• Local variables

Part II

Chapter 4

• Conditions/Loops (part 1)
  • If, else if, else
• Operators (part 2)
• Conditions/Loops (part 2)
  • For
  • For .. In

Authors and contributors

Ruben Vardanyan

Contributors

Wolf Warrior

See also

• A Wikiversity course on ActionScript
• Actionscript.org
• Flash MX 2004 Live Documents
• ActionScript Tutorials
• Flash 8 Live Documents
• osflash - Open source Flash community and projects.
• Ultrashock Forums and Tutorials
• Flash Forum
• Cute Flash Games
• AS Main: List of helpful ActionScript tutorials