Migrating from ActionScript 2.0 to ActionScript 3.0: Key concepts and changes

This article provides an overview of key concepts that will help you migrate your applications to ActionScript 3.0. When I first started building ActionScript 3.0 apps, the hardest thing for me to get used to were the changes to the simple commands that I had used for years. Where did the attachMovie method go? Where did everything in the MovieClip class move to? It felt like I had to learn to walk again right before a big race.

During the past two years I have worked full-time producing ActionScript 3.0 SWF and Adobe AIR applications. I laughed. I cried. I hit the wall (figuratively) a few times. In the end, I have to say that it's hard to picture going back to ActionScript 2.0. On a general level, the great thing about ActionScript 3.0 is that everything is standardized: there's one way to create instances, one way to work with events, and so on. If you're new to coding ActionScript, there may be more to learn but it's easier to learn and ultimately a good place to start.

In this article you'll find tips and observations on changes in ActionScript 3.0 in the following areas:

• Working with movie clips
• Working with events
• Loading data, content, and symbol instances
• Working with XML
• Building object classes in ActionScript 3.0

To get the most out of this article, you should have some familiarity with ActionScript 2.0 and Adobe Flash CS4 Professional.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

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