Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

ActionScript 1.0

ActionScript started out with simple commands to control the Timeline, such as play and stop. Additionally you could control the Timelines of objects within the Flash environment, called Movie Clips, as well as control their x and y placement, and width and height. You could also set and return variables, use loops, and communicate with databases using PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, and so on, and that was about all that was required to make Flash explode. Developers were soon adding code to create spinning DNA helixes, complex animations, games, and web applications such as shopping carts and multimedia galleries.

ActionScript 1.0, with the release of Flash MX, evolved to include several more objects and available methods, and would allow for object oriented programming, but it was limited with regards to its implementation of classes. It wasn’t long after, however, that ActionScript 2.0 was released with the next version of Flash, Flash MX 2004, although ActionScript 1.0 remained to provide easy scripting for nonprogrammers. Flash 8 once again includes a Script Assistant to help nonprogrammers with object scripting, which was in previous versions of Flash, but omitted with the last version, Flash MX 2004.