Flash CS5: The Missing Manual

Beginning Your ActionScript Project

When your Flash project includes ActionScript programming, you have some decisions to make at the outset. As explained in the previous section, you need to decide whether you're using ActionScript 2 or ActionScript 3, since you can't mix version 3 with earlier versions. (The exercises in this book all use ActionScript 3.) Once you've made that decision, you choose the type of Flash file you want to create in the intro screen or in the File→New dialog box (Figure 12-2).

Figure 12-2. When you create a Flash file, you need to decide between ActionScript 3.0 and ActionScript 2.0. You can't use code from both in a single Flash document (.fla). Use the Intro splash screen (top) or the File→New command to create a new document (bottom). If you're using a separate ActionScript document for your code, then choose ActionScript File to create an .as document.

Coders' Clinic: Timeline Programming: Pros and Cons

Ask more than one script writer where it's best to place code—the Flash timeline or an ActionScript file—and you're likely to start an energetic debate. If you plan on a long ActionScript career, it's worth learning both techniques.

Originally, ActionScript was considered a helper tool for animations. If you wanted the moon to rise at a certain point in an animation, you'd attach a snippet of ActionScript code to the moon or to a specific frame in an animation. ...