dispatchEvent()™

I’ve received several emails from readers who have had trouble running code from the ActionScript 3.0 Bible. You can find a step-by-step guide to running example code in the Introduction to that book. We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, but friends, we are living in the HD age, and pictures are boring us to tears. Today’s sophisticated audience demands excitement, explosions, underwater scenes, bullet time, pole dances, and THX certified sound! So to provide a gripping emotional connection with my readers, I here provide video tutorials on how to build examples from the book (in under 5 minutes!). First, using Flash CS3, then using Flex Builder 3. Pow! Boom! Kachow!

See how to run example code using Flash | See how to run example code using Flex Builder

This link is an oldie but a goodie. It has helped me remember to KISS countless times and to focus on the needs of users when designing sites. Check it out.

An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design [37 Signals]

After nearly a year in development I’m very proud to announce that the ActionScript 3.0 bible has hit the shelves. This is our first book and its very exciting for us. The AS3 Bible is not just an update to the previous edition, the Flash 8 ActionScript Bible, but was written from the ground up with ActionScript 3.0 development in mind. We tried to focus on topics that matter to real world developers and to make it just as useful for experienced AS2 developers as it is for beginning programmers.

We’ve put a lot into this book and sincerely hope you enjoy it.

Get it at Amazon

NOTE: many people have been complaining about the lack of code on the companion site. We’re currently working with our publisher to get that sorted out as soon as possible and hopefully it should be up by the end of the week.

I asked a passing hobo to pose for a picture with the new Bible

One of the most important new features in Apollo is the ability to access the local file system directly. This provides developers with the ability to read and edit text or html files, save preferences locally, store application states as external files, serialize and de-serialize data and much more. This tutorial will cover the File API features in Apollo step-by-step and will serve as a supplement to the talk I recently gave at the New York Flex Users Group.

This tutorial will be presented in multiple sections. This first will cover the File and FileStream classes and the subsequent ones will cover the Flex components used for viewing and accessing the file system and serializing and de-serializing data.

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They say you shouldn’t count your eggs before they hatch, but I figure this is more like counting your fetuses in the third trimester. Either way, I’d like to announce that our new book, ActionScript 3.0 Bible (Wiley), is in the final stages of editing and will be out this Fall! Roger Braunstein, Joey Lott, Josh Noble, and myself, Mims Wright have been busily typing since August or so to make it happen. As this is our first book (except for Joey) we’re very excited to see it finally coming together.

The description on Amazon is gravely inaccurate and the cover design is atrocious, however, you are welcome to pre-purchase it with my guarantee that it is not bad.

The AS3 Bible is a comprehensive guide to learning ActionScript 3.0. It’s platform agnostic with regards to Flash CS3 and FlexBuilder - we focus on ActionScript only rather than frameworks. Every effort has been made to approach the language from a point of view where a beginner with little programming knowledge could pick up the book and learn AS3. At the same time the book addresses the needs of experienced Flash programmers by highlighting the new features in AS3 as they relate to previous versions of ActionScript. We think this book will be a great read for beginning to intermediate developers looking to learn ActionScript 3.0 and will make a great reference book for more advanced developers. Look for it in September or October of 2007

Hi. For you readers in NYC, I’ll be speaking at the next NY Flex Users Group on the Apollo Filesystem API. I hope you can make it! If not, watch this space for notes and code samples. Cheers!

NYFLEX.org

(Since we’re MXNA’d now, I wanted to bring this post and maybe a couple of others back up to the top by reposting them. This was written back in October)

I was looking at this blog post by Tink about more strict Abstract constructors in Flash using Errors. I worked out a way that is a bit more formalized. It adds support for abstract methods and unlike Tink’s example, doesn’t require you to type out the string of the class name.

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Quick AS3 hint for today. Keep learning from my mistakes! Did you know that the order of the ! operator is higher than the order of the is operator? That means that in the example:

if (!strategy is AwesomeStrategy) {...

in which I am trying to run some code if the strategy is not an instance of AwesomeStrategy, actually evaluates:

if (null is AwesomeStrategy) {...
if (false) {...

In other words, the not binds higher and applies to strategy instead of strategy is AwesomeStrategy, the condition evaluates to false 100% of the time, and you end up puzzled as to why the block in the if statement didn’t run. Don’t make my mistake! Include parentheses when negating comparisons! Use this instead:

if (!(strategy is AwesomeStrategy)) {...

That’s right, you heard it here first. Unless you aren’t as tired as me right now and already knew that. Actually, as I look at my incorrect code now, it seems pretty obviously incorrect. OH WELL!

See the whole order of operations in AS3 here.

As you may know, Roger and I are working on the next version of the ActionScript Bible published by Wiley (the Amazon page is full of errors, don’t worry, it’s not even out yet). I wanted to share a few tips that I use as notes to myself for when I’m stuck with writing.

• Write headlines and use the outline view to order the big picture
• Simplify
• Base information around a task that the reader might want to do
• Write or flow without being concerned about the form then go back and edit it later
• Ask “Do I really need this?”
• Read other similar books
• Say it out loud then write down what you say
• Work on something that you know you can finish then go back to where you were stuck
• Forget about style and focus on the facts
• Take breaks and do something different like drawing a diagram or writing a code sample

Hey New Yorkers, I’ll be presenting at the next New York Flash Platforms Group (formerly Adobe Users Group) hosted at Schematic on March 7th at 7:00. I’ll be discussing the ActionScript 3.0 Event framework from the ground up. We will cover the basics for people who aren’t familiar with events, but also talk about some of the more advanced features like creating custom Event classes and using the Event Flow. I hope to see you there!

Detail’s here.