Anyone want AS3 tutorials?? Topic Ideas?

[JasonHippy]

OK,
I rarely start threads here, I'm more of a solutions guy than a problems guy; but I've started this thread off the back of something posted elsewhere by my good friend and regular poster in this forum, rajarajan07. (quoted below!)

Jason always gives the great explanation for the thing he known. Thats Great!

Jason is the right person to write tutorials on Daniweb! Jason plz consider this.

I think my reply to this warrants its own thread, for reasons which will become apparent shortly...Before that there are some inevitable and inordinately long-winded ramblings: (Sorry!)

First up, I must say thanks to Raja for the vote of confidence. It really means a lot to me, especially when lately it seems to me as if I've forgotten more about Flash and Actionscript than some people ever learn. So perhaps writing some AS3 tutorials here would help me to at least retain, if not refresh or even expand what remaining knowledge I have in this area.

Unfortunately thanks to my currently insane schedule, my post-count here has been pretty low of late. But if I ever get enough free time I'd definitely be up for writing some tutorials on AS3.

So now we come down to the nitty-gritty and the main reason for my post. And this is the part I need your help/feedback on:
When/if I finally manage to find enough time to create some AS3 tutorials, are there any particular topics that you'd like me to cover??

NOTE: Any tutorials I post would primarily be Flex SDK oriented rather than Flash IDE oriented. There are two main reasons for this:
1. With the free Flex SDK, anybody can learn AS3/Flash without having to buy a copy of the Flash IDE, regardless of their OS (Win/Mac/*Nix).
2. It's what I use. I haven't used the flash IDE for a long time now!

That said, all of the code/principles in the tutorials should be usable by Flash IDE users too, so Flash IDE users would not be completely forsaken.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any ideas/replies!
Cheers for now,
Jas.

P.S. I don't think I can directly post anything under the 'tutorial' classification and I'm not sure how to get the necessary priveleges to do so either. I think posts classified as 'tutorials' have to be approved by admins. But I'm not sure how that whole process works. e.g. How to submit material for approval, or for that matter to whom. I'll do some trawling on the forums here and look into that...@Admins: Any words of advice on this in the meantime?

Although, I suppose I could post some AS3 tutorials under 'code-snippets' or something....Hmmm {strokey beard moment}

[iamthwee]

Hi Jason,

I would like to request a tutorial on making an xml driven banner, that uses masks and transitional effects. For example:-

http://activeden.net/item/ken-burns-banner-rotator-as3-configurator/full_screen_preview/103628

[rajarajan2017]

Iamthwee, I agree with you. But the xml banner shown is a well formed with background animations and image zooming effects which are dynamically created. Anyway I hope this is a good start for Jason happy to write tutorials!

[iamthwee]

^^This is true but the dynamic zooming effects can probably be achieved using masking and tweenLite/Max.

I'm sure a man of Jason's calibre can come up with something. Anyway, I'll try something when I get home.

[JasonHippy]

Woah, I wasn't expecting that..So we're starting with advanced rocket science now are we?? There's no messing about here is there?!

I was hoping to ease myself in gently, seeing as I'm a bit rusty ATM.

OK, I've just taken a look at the site and the configurator...Wow, there's quite a lot of work that's gone into that! Kudos to Ken Burns, that's pretty comprehensive! Definitely some food for thought..

OK, now I just need to try to simplify the idea, create something similar and then write a tutorial..hmmm...This is gonna be a real puzzler!

What are we aiming for here for the purposes of the tut?
Perhaps a simple masked banner which uses an XML file to:
A: Load an image to animate
B: Set some text in a text-field
C: Set some basic animation options for the text and the graphic (start and end positions, start and end alpha vals and type of tweening to use??)

Sound good?
I'll try to make a start on that during whatever free time I get over the next couple of weeks. Once I've got something working, I'll start drafting the tut. Then when it's all done, I'll post it up in it's own thread.
My end result won't look anywhere near as stunning as Mr Burns' though!

Wish me luck!
Cheers for now,
Jas.

[rajarajan2017]

Yeah even you can define all positions, zooming levels, alpha, start point and end point all over there in your xml as an attribute of specific tags. Expect your tutorial as anyone can use to embed in their websites. Cool!

[iamthwee]

All right guys I've got this far...

Basically, I'm stuck looping through the xml file and loading automatically loading another picture.

I think I need a delay function somewhere using the Timer var but I don't know how to use it.

import com.greensock.*;
import com.greensock.easing.*;

var loader:URLLoader=new URLLoader();
loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,completeHandler);

var dur:int = 0;
var m:int = 0;
var j:Number = 0;
var k:Number = 0;

var request:URLRequest=new URLRequest("test.xml");
try 
{
	loader.load(request);
} 
catch(error:Error) 
{
	trace('Cannot find');
}

function completeHandler(event:Event):void
{
	var result:XML=new XML(event.target.data);
	
	//loop through and populate xml list
	
	var imgList:XMLList = result..image;
	
	for ( var i:int = 0; i < imgList.length(); i++ )
	{
	  dur = imgList[i].duration;
	  m = imgList[i].x_pos;
	  j = imgList[i].x_scale;
	  k = imgList[i].y_scale;
	  loadImage(imgList[i].path);
          
           //need a delay function here?
	}
}

function loadImage(path:String):void
{
	var loader:Loader=new Loader();
	var req:URLRequest=new URLRequest(path);
	loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,onComplete);
	loader.load(req);
}

function onComplete(evt:Event):void
{
	var img:Bitmap =evt.target.loader.content as Bitmap;
    img.smoothing=true; //set image quality to best
	
	var mc:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
	
	mc.addChild(img);
	addChild(mc);
	
	mc.mask = mymask;
	TweenMax.to(mc, dur, { x:m, scaleX:j, scaleY:k });
	//removeChild(mc);
}

I think we can use text effects from the free package at:-

here

[rajarajan2017]

Hi iamthwee,

i) Look into your for loop, Actually the loop will continue to process upto the length of nodes in your xml. (ie. Image names)
ii) The images is different by their sizes, might be a picture is greater than antoher in size. (So here you dont have any confirmation on which image loads first, ie. Timing differs, it loads small size images first and others in the sequence)
iii) But the for loop finsihed the routine with fraction of seconds by calling all the images.

Logic:

i) Remove the for loop
ii) Increase the i variable once the first image loaded (Please refer to event listeners for loaders)
iii) Load next image one by one after it completes load.

The above is the logic. I dont have AS3.0 in my office system. Otherwise I will implement the logic what you want. Give it a try.

[Lusiphur]

Personally I'd like to see some more basic tutorials for beginners such as:

• Importing/manipulating Sprites
• Drag-able Components/Interactive Flash (moveable tiles in a children's game for example)
• On-The-Fly object cloning (taking an item from a "stack" on-screen and having the stack replenish automatically)

I only mention those examples as they're related to a project I'm working on as a complete newbie to flash programming but I'm sure there are many more "newbie how-to" topics that could be covered.

I just wish there were more Flash tutorials out there. As it is now, it's difficult to find the resources to do some of what I'd like to do without knowing in advance exactly what functions/methods to use which would eliminate me needing to be looking for them in the first place.

[iamthwee]

Has anyone made any progress on this?

[JasonHippy]

Sorry, I've not had much free time to myself recently. What with work, the band, family holidays etc I've had to put the tut idea on hold temporarily.
Time is still a bit tight atm and will be for the next couple of months, but I am working on things whenever I get the chance.... Or at least whenever I remember to! heh heh!

I've taken things from the other direction with regard to the XML driven banner. I've been working on a class for the actual animation, which will take parameters read from the XML (image, text, animation options etc.). I'll work on the XML Loader at a later date.

I think I've more or less worked out how to structure the animation class now.
I just need to finalise the animation class and then the final part will be to create a main class which will read in XML from a file and dynamically create an instance of the animation class.

Once I've done this I'll get onto writing it all up into a tutorial!

Anyway, just so you can see some progress I've attached a .swf demo of a prototype of my animation class. I've embedded an image in it for now and hard-coded the text and the parameters for the animation. This was all done in pure actionscript NOT the Flash IDE!

Cheers for now,
Jas.

BTW: @ Lusiphur : Nice ideas, for some tutorial topics. They were more or less the level I was thinking of starting my tutorials at. I shall add those to my TODO list!

[iamthwee]

Cool, look forward to seeing the whole tutorial with a gallery driven by an xml file.