If you want to create exciting dynamic web sites that will amaze your online audience, then the Flash platform is a great way to go, with it's many features, including powerful graphical and sound and video capabilities. To really harness the power of Flash though, you need to make use of ActionScript to provide dynamic effects, enable user interaction, and manipulate data.
ActionScript 3.0, the Flash Platform's scripting language, offers a lot of new and powerful features. ActionScript is now a full-fledged programming language, with complete object-oriented capabilities, improved event handling, sound and video support, drawing capabilities, support for regular expressions, and much more.
Whether you are a Flash designer wishing to add to your skill set or an experienced ActionScript developer who wants to get up to speed with the latest version, you'll find all you need to know in Foundation ActionScript 3.0 with Flash CS3 and Flex.
This book covers all the essential techniques from the ground up, allowing you to get up and running quickly and easily. Starting with the fundamentals, you'll learn about using ActionScript objects, manipulating sound and video, and harnessing the power of regular expressions and XML.
The book concludes with two case studies to consolidate what you've learned and to introduce some more advanced techniques. This will give you some grounding in the new and exciting world of ActionScript 3.0 and show you how it all fits together in larger applications, allowing you to go on and build your own professional sites.
The sensible layout of the book makes it easy to find information about specific techniques. It doesn't aim to be an exhaustive reference, but rather focuses on the essential skills that will enable you to get up and running more quickly. With this book as your guide, you'll be creating killer Flash applications before you know it!
Sean McSharry has been a Flash developer and designer since 1999 (Flash 3). He runs the popular Flashcoder blog (Flashcoder.net/blog). He has consulted in many business sectors from oil exploration to banking to Internet protocol television (IPTV), for major industry leaders such as Microsoft and Adobe Consulting. He is an Adobe Certified Flash Developer and Designer and has worked on everything from banners to massive rich Internet applications. He has worked in Europe and America and is the director of creative research and development for AKQA in New York. He uses the entire Flash platform in his development (Flash, ActionScript, Flash Lite, Flash Media Server, etc.). He is a pre-release tester for many Adobe products and is actively involved in the Flash community. He strongly believes that Flash developers and designers should be as comfortable with and passionate about code as they are about aesthetics and design. "Flash allows you to bring everything together in one development environment for many platforms. So to produce the best work you need to be skilled in coding, design, video, audio, stills production, etc. Even if you don't actually do them, you have to have a good understanding of them all if you want to produce the best work."
