Ok not really on shelves per say put on a web site near you! I know some of you guys are really excited about this release and can't wait for Steven to release the final version. But for those of you already creating AS3 sites why not help out in testing! This way you can be sure its the product it can be! For you, and for everyone else out here on the inner webs. 
Well thats, that. Its a quick post, I know, but I wanted to make sure you all knew in case you hadn't been reading Steven's blog also! Enjoy! And please comment and lets us all know what you think about it and let Steven know too!
Archive for the 'actionscript' Category
Do you love you some Flash? Are you a flash developer? Are you a flash designer?
Did you answer yes to one of these questions and you live in Dallas, Tx? I sure hope so!
I have been thinking about getting the Dallas flash community closer. How you ask? Well, how else! Get us all together for a few beers and a little actionscripting! 
In all seriousness I am hoping to find about 10-20 Flash guru's that want to get together to start collaborating and teaching each other some tips and tricks. We have a great community here of Flash developers with a lot of talent and I think its time we start tapping into it. I haven't worked out ANY details as of yet. I really just wanted to try and get a head count of who might be interested. So if you don't mind helping with the cause and emailing your fellow flash buddies, that would be great! Who says Dallas can't do what the other big cities are doing? Now lets see what we are capable of!
I will start gathering a list, so if you guys could either emailing me or comment on this post about your interest that would be great. Then in about a week or so I will gather up all the emails and see how many people we have intrested and go from there. Also if you are interested in speaking to the group or have a facility that we could all meet up at I would be very interested! My email is corbanb[at]gmail[dot]com. I can't wait to hear from you all.
Update: I don't have any location details but I am thinking like the second Wednesday of the month after work. Like 7 - 8PM possibly.
Hey I was browsing my mailing lists just now and ran across an email Moses Gunesch sent out to the GO mailing list. It's a video tutorial on how to use GO! He said he is probably going to have to redo it cause of some audio issues but hey its pretty cool to have some info from the source on using GO. Its kind of a big file but, enjoy!
Anyway I'm not sure if any of you guys are following this closely but if not you should be. GO is Moses' new animation engine for AS3 and its supposed to be super fast! Most of you know I haven't made the jump to AS3 yet. But for those of you that have this will be great intro to using GO! And for more info check out the GO blog or Moses's blog. Cheers!
Update: The video has been moved and is now in an FLV format! Much nicer! Thanks moses!
Wow, what a whirlwind of a week has it been since my little Dear Adobe letter. So many of you have responded from around the globe, giving me and Adobe feedback on so many aspects of the topic. It's been really great to get this boiling in some of your minds and to see how many people from all backgrounds care about flash intimately and how they envision flash growing. Well, I wanted to try and clarify some things about my letter, so let me just kinda recap somethings since the dust is starting to settle.
Am I upset Adobe has created AS3, MXML and a tighter programming environment? NO! That would be ridiculous. I know that AS3 is the step in the right direction for Actionscript and the player. It is cleaner, faster, stronger... everything that a new iteration in a language should be. It helps give developers the freedom to tighten down their apps and provide a much better product to the end user. The flash 9 player has given older machines new life by running these larger apps faster than ever before. And that means a lot to all of us, since it's broadening the audience of flash sites and apps all together.
What else has AS3 done? Well, besides the player and scope improvements, it has brought on a much larger scripting engine. One that has improved everything, with better event handling, methods, properties and functions. So why was I saying it's so much harder? Imagine you are a designer and you want to jump into flash, action script and flash animation and start building a website or some type of interactive experience. In the AS1 and AS2 days it would be EASY. Throw some buttons on the stage, put a few mouse events with gotoAndPlay's on them and viola! You're starting to build something. Granted the options were smaller than what we could do but hey you were building a FLASH site/animation!
Now move yourself forward in time a little. Flash is using the AS3/4 engine. It's code driven and can build the best apps in the world! But what happened to all the fun of flash? It's gone. Designers can no longer go hey it would be great to build "X". They can't write a site on one frame. They don't have a clue what an object is and hardly know that actionscript is. But they want to build something in flash. Their minds don't and will not ever work in code. Some of you "devigners" are the exception and are the ones TRULY pushing flash to the edge of its boundaries. But if you weren't ever given the opportunity to start building something with flash in its early years you are never going to find out you are a "devigner". You will always remain a "designer", lost trying to understand what you can do with flash and actionscript. This is what I was trying to truly get at in my previous letter to Adobe.
Was I trying to get Adobe to keep AS2 around forever? No! I was just trying to get us all and Adobe to think about what Flash has done to the design/interactive world! And how this tool is used to not only create apps (which I hope is what Flex will be for, not Flash) but to create engaging animation-driven websites. That engage our end users and "had" made it easy for designers to pick it up and start engaging our users in ways most developers never would of never thought of. This is what made flash magical. All I am asking Adobe to do is look at the product and again think about how to leverage Flash and all the technology behind it back to the designer some again. And not to run off into the sunset of the online application world too fast. But to maybe keep progressing the scripting language to give both worlds the ability to create!
I just want to make sure the designer doesn't lose control and the ability to design with Flash. The word design is funny in today's interactive world. It can mean MANY things. But it still has its roots and whether you are designing with code, photoshop or with the Flash animation tool you can still design! That's what made flash so great. It divided the gap and also made the impossible possible for a designer. That is what was really amazing! And it made it all possible on the web! I REALLY can't wait to see where the product goes! But I also don't want to see it run off too far from all of the designers that are engaging our end users with their magical minds! So I just want to say I know Adobe can still keep moving in the developer direction but I think with the right tools and additions to the product it can also keep the designers interested and keep their hands in the product evolving the web.
I haven't sat down and thought directly about what these changes may be. But I will! I know that my opinions about these tools are not everyone's opinion. But that's not why I have been blogging about this. It's to hear the rest of the community's opinions and open the door a bit more for the designers and everyone to speak! Thanks for listening again!
Update: Sorry for the eariler miss hap on the title of this post. I promise that was not on purpose.
So today I saw that Yahoo dropped their set of ASTRA components for AS3. And... WOW is all I can say. I'm so glad to see a company like Yahoo doing this. Giving back to our community in an open source way! Its really beautiful and makes them really feel like family. Almost as much if not more than Adobe. It's just wild to see them doing almost more than Adobe does to push flash! I am thrilled to see them sharing with our community!
So just for fun I have decided to post my not so AS3 or OOP combo box. Its my first try and I built it in about 2 hours but its a great start. Its built with AS2 of course since I haven't made the leap of faith to AS3. But it works and serves its purpose. It would be really easy to extend this and make it much more dynamic and have TONS more functionality but hey its free and it will get you moving in the right direction.
So the reason I built it was it seemed like the component most art directors like to have custom designed drop downs and one of the most common in forms. All of the drop down components I have found and tried to edit have just been a 'pain in my arse'. So this is my super simple and sleek lil version. Easily editable and here for your grabin'. I know its not ASTRA but hey it is what it is!
Ok so just right now I was having to find a list of states and put them in this custom drop down 'component' I was building. But I didn't have a full list of the states and anywhere. So I decided I would compile two lists for you guys to use if need be.
I did do a google search trying to find it, but all I could find was one for PHP and not Flash. So... here you go! Hope it helps a few of you guys out! Oh and keep in mind this was a QUICK post. Sorry if there are a few errors. Let me know if you find any also so I can update!
Update: I looked over both arrays and they should match up and work great. Enjoy!
Check after break for the code...
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