Topic: Flash MX 2004 (Flash 7) (Page 1 of 1)

Anyone got it yet?

Or does anyone know of any sample flash 7 content that shows off some of the features new to this version?

Always start with Moock. Read the August 26 blog entry for a sample of AS2 code (57 comments to that blog entry!). There is a class structure now; all classes must be stored in external .as files and included in the movie. Strong typing too. The code syntax looks weird and disorienting to me, but I suppose we'll get used to it!

Grant Skinner has some excellent intro material on his blog. Components are different too, so AS1 components evidently won't work with AS2. Bummer for all those folk that have written Components.

Robert Penner released his famous easing equations in AS2 format. Download and study, but not before reading the two blog entries I suggested.

There are other resources, but these are ones I've read recently and found helpful

Joey Lott, a moderator at were-here. has written two intro tutorials that might be of interest:
http://www.person13.com/articles/as2primerpartone/

and
http://www.person13.com/articles/as2primerparttwo/

Damn Steve, aren't you just a wealth of knowledge. I don't know how you manage to keep up with everything.

I'm a little concerned about the "Compile AS2 down to AS1" thing though. What if it buggers up in the process? Surely there are some (many?) parts of AS2 that can't be converted into AS1...

This has me questioning when I should switch over to developing in the new version. If there are going to be big problems developing Flash 6 content with MX 2004 then, *shurg*... Most of those articles seems to dance around this issue and didn't say anything beyond what Macromedia mentioned on their marketing fuelled MX 2004 product pages.

Although I've only really started seriously developing with flash over the past month so I'm still kinda riding that wave of possibilities that comes with settling into a new programming environment. I think I'll wait till I'm on holidays before I download the MX 2004 trial so I'll have plenty of time to put it through it's paces.

I like the new class structures though. Not that I'm the most fluent OO programmer around, but trying to write strongly encapsulated OO programs in AS1 is a ripe pain in the arse IMHO. And the separation of the code from the application, time lines and movies makes a lot of sense as well.

I'm hoping and praying that Director will eventually be updated and released as an MX 2004 product as well (seeing as cold fusion and freehand have yet to be upgraded), but I think Macromedia have abandoned that product *sniff*. But maybe I'm wrong, it does fall into a nice niche market so maybe there's still money to be made from director's continued development. My only real hope lies in the complete absence of advanced bitmap graphic manipulation and real-time 3D rendering capabilities in Flash MX 2004 -- which appears to have remained strongly web focused. Although I must say, developing programs with director was and is twice as fast as flash. The way the authoring interface mixes with the code you write just makes so much more sense and is lightning fast in terms of development. Making code "components" in director is so much simpler and well... this thread was about flash right... my bad...


Ok, back to flash. Anyone know if AS2 Arrays can now be associative?... I always felt horribly limited with arrays in Flash compared to Javascript or PHP. I've tried to find some kind of online documentation for Actionscript 2.0 but I came up empty.

Damn. Now that I've read those articles I don?t want to go back to developing in AS1 anymore. I guess that's the point, how dare they make something worth wanted to upgrade to! Hah.