Total Training

 

John Ulliman

onthewave.com

In these videos from Total Training, John Ulliman, an authorized Flash instructor, teaches you basic ActionScript 2.0 skills in Flash Professional 8.

After watching these videos you will understand how to do the following:

• Use the Actions window and Script Assist
• Create buttons and label them
• Assign actions to buttons as well as organize them
• Stop sounds with the Behaviors panel
• Use the Goto and Play behaviors as well as advanced Goto behavior options
• Modify a behavior and add an Action layer
• Duplicate and modify sequences in the Timeline
• Link a button to a website

This series of tutorials was taken from an entire lesson, and are meant to be viewed sequentially.

Setting up to use ActionScript

This short tutorial is about scripting basics and getting actions to occur on buttons. It follows an earlier lesson, which covered creating buttons. You'll see how to add sound effects to keyframes and how to add text.

• Watch the video (3:39 min)

Introducing the Actions window and Script Assist

This tutorial is about adding scripting elements. After the rundown about using scripting to change the looping behavior, there is a tour of the Actions window. You'll also learn how to tell where actions have been added to keyframes.

• Watch the video (6:47 min)

Creating buttons to activate ActionScript

This short tutorial is about how to build a button for the user. You'll see how to add text to the button as well as changing the color.

• Watch the video (3:36 min)

Labeling buttons in the Properties window

This short tutorial is about adding script to the buttons. After a brief rundown of the Property inspector, you are shown how to name the buttons in that panel.

• Watch the video (2:02 min)

Assigning Play and Stop actions to buttons

This short tutorial is about how to add actions to buttons using the Script Assist feature. After seeing what different events you can use, you'll learn how the buttons work after actions have been added to them.

• Watch the video (4:38 min)

Organizing and arranging buttons

This short tutorial is about adding more buttons and scaling them to fit on the screen. You are shown how to clean up the buttons by aligning them and centering the text.

• Watch the video (1:58 min)

Using the Behaviors window to stop all sounds

This tutorial is about how to set up a button to stop sounds in your animation. You are shown the Behaviors window, which is a secondary area to set up actions, and then are shown the results of the Behavior window in the Actions window.

• Watch the video (6:22 min)

Using the Goto and Play behavior

This tutorial is about setting up buttons and a control system. See how to navigate between two layers with the Goto behaviors. There is also a brief rundown on how to copy and paste a label while still maintaining its behavior.

• Watch the video (8:13 min)

Modifying a behavior and adding an Action layer

This short tutorial is about how to modify behaviors that have already been created. After learning another way to use the Goto behavior, you'll see how to put a label on a frame.

• Watch the video (3:30 min)

Duplicating and modifying sequences in the Timeline

This short tutorial is about modifying the Timeline by duplicating frames to change the results in the animation. You'll also see how to reconnect layers in the Layer property window.

• Watch the video (3:31 min)

Using advanced Goto behavior options

This short tutorial is about setting up button controls using the Goto behavior. After getting a rundown of the Goto and Play behavior window, you'll see the working buttons that have been created for the animation.

• Watch the video (3:56 min)

Linking a button to a website

This short tutorial is about using the Go to Web behavior to set up a button for the user to visit a website. You'll also see how to set up the link for the website.

• Watch the video (2:32 min)

Where to go from here

For more information about Flash development, visit the Flash Developer Center. For more information about programming in ActionScript 2.0, visit the Flash Developer Center's ActionScript and Object-Oriented Programming topic center.

For more video tutorials about Flash, check out the Getting Started with Flash Professional 8 tutorials on the Interactive Tutorials page in the Developer Center.

About the authors