Understanding ActionScript 3 debugging in Flash

Debugging is the process of removing known issues from your application or testing for unknown errors and performance problems. In the end, this process is usually what makes or breaks a project. This article is designed to help you understand the debugging process and issues common to developing in the ActionScript 3 environment in Flash CS4 Professional.

The topics and workflow suggestions in this article are organized for both designers and developers. Your goal along the way will be to identify and interpret issues, to get comfortable with the process of working with errors, and to define a workflow for resolving errors when they occur.

To help you visualize the process, I have provided a series of sample files, each of which contains a broken version and a fixed version. The fixed versions are supplied for reference, but you'll be able to walk through the solutions during the course of the article.

Requirements

To make the most of these samples, you'll need the following software and files:

Flash CS4 Professional

• Try
• Buy

Sample files:

• as3_debugging_issues.zip (ZIP, 124K)

Prerequisite knowledge

This article is geared toward both designers and programmers working in Adobe Flash CS4 Professional. The article assumes that you have a basic understanding of the Flash CS4 user interface. You'll also want to have some experience with the ActionScript 3 syntax to get the most out of the code debugging sections.

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

Page 1 of 6

Next Page

About the author