Flash MX Tutorials and Articles

Learn how to incorporate frame-based animations into a time-based movie. Using Moose, you can play back the timeline of any movie clip at a frame rate that is independent of the main movie's frame rate.

Moose is a new open-source ActionScript library for Flash MX by yours truly. What does it do? It makes your life as a Flash developer easier! This series of twelve tutorials will show you all you can achieve with it.

When first trying to do a project in Flash MX it may seem to be a daunting task to say the least. There’s no need to fear, with a few basic guidelines and some patience, you just might live to tell the tale.

In this article we’ll give some more practical insight into Flash MX projects and discuss a few commonly used tactics for good Flash MX housekeeping.

This seven part tutorial will teach you absolutely everything you need to know about how to create professional Flash components. It also shows how to create an easy to install Macromedia Extension Package (MXP).

Common Component Issues

This article covers the common issues that many component developers have, such as Coding Standards, Versioning, #initclip, and nesting.

Live Preview

Live Preview is hard to grasp your first time around. It may seem like you end up doing more work than you should. This tutorial will give you the knowledge to create effective Live Previews.

Distinguishing Flash Remoting Calls

This tutorial will walk you through distinguishing remoting calls. This is useful when working in larger applications where you need error catching and guaranteed calls. Flash and Coldfusion examples are included.

Using SharedObjects

With the introduction of FlashMX developers now have a useful tool called SharedObjects. SharedObjects can help you make that killer application or simply replace those annoying cookies.

Using FlashVars

FlashVars are a good way to get initial data into Flash movies. This article walks you through the basic steps of using FlashVars. It also discusses how to convert your FlashVar parameters into the data types of your choice.

Following up on the ASBroadcaster tutorial, this article explains the process of building a custom, object-oriented event source from a class. A custom NewsFeed object is designed and transformed into an event source.

Events and ASBroadcaster

Building on the core concepts of event-based programming, this tutorial explores the specific details of how event sources use ASBroadcaster, an undocumented object.

Listeners: An Introduction

How are your listening skills? Perhaps you've heard about "listeners" in Flash MX, and wondered who's talking to them. Find out what the big deal is with listeners, and how they can bring your programming to a new level.

Cameras in Flash

The purpose of this tutorial is to show an alternative to representing 3D environments in Flash by creating a camera to view it through.

Introduction to Events in Flash MX

Flash MX introduces a new event model, a new system for detecting events and responding to them. Find out how the new event model works, how it compares to Flash 5 clip event handlers, and what this means practically.

Vectors

Vectors are extremely useful mathematical tools. Learn how to define vectors and add, subtract, and scale them, as well as vector operations like the dot product, cross product, and projection.

Undocumented AS Commands

There are many undocumented commands that have been discovered in Flash 5. Some of the most mysterious ones begin with "AS". Find out what they are, how they work, and which ones are still around in Flash MX.

 Introduction to Symbols
 Creating Graphic Symbols
 Creating Movieclip Symbols
 Creating Button Symbols
 Introduction to Animation
 Animating with Motion Tweens