ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

Some Basic Phrases

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granted, be explicit in every detail, and list every step that’s necessary to complete a

task. But remember that, unlike children, Flash will do precisely what you tell it and

nothing that you don’t.

Some Basic Phrases

On the first day of any language school you’d expect to learn a few basic phrases

(“Good day,” “How are you,” etc.). Even if you’re just memorizing a phrase and

don’t know what each word means, you can learn the effect of the phrase and can

repeat it to produce that effect. Once you’ve learned the rules of grammar, expanded

your vocabulary, and used the words from your memorized phrases in multiple con-

texts, you can understand your early phrases in a richer way. The rest of this chapter

will be much like that first day of language school—you’ll see bits and pieces of

code, and you’ll be introduced to some fundamental programming grammar. The

rest of the book will build on that foundation. You may want to come back to this

chapter when you’ve finished the book to see just how far you’ve traveled.

Creating Code

For our first exercise, we’ll add four simple lines of code to a Flash movie. Nearly all

ActionScript programming takes place in the Actions panel. Any instructions we add

to the Actions panel are carried out by Flash when our movie plays. Open ...