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What's new in ActionScript 3.0?

Saying goodbye to 'skip intro'

What's new in ActionScript 3.0?In-the-Brain - Peter Elst

Who is Peter Elst?

• Freelance Flash Platform Consultant• Active in the Flash community since 1998• Adobe Community Expert, Adobe Certified

Professional, Adobe Certified Instructor• Author of Flash MX Most Wanted Components, Object-

Oriented ActionScript for Flash 8, Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0

• Speaking engagements at Adobe MAX, FlashForward, FITC, Flash on the Beach, webDU, Flashconference.de, Multi-Mania, Scotch on the Rocks,…


Who are you?

• Designer/Developer?• Experience in JavaScript, ActionScript, Java, nothing…?

• Flash is good/bad?


What will we talk about• What is ActionScript?• History of Flash and ActionScript• New features in ActionScript 3.0• Interesting projects• Q&A

Feel free to interrupt, ask questions at any time - lets make it interesting


“ActionScript is a scripting language based on ECMAScript (JavaScript), used primarily for the development of websites and software using the Adobe Flash Player platform…”

- Wikipedia, February 2008


ECMAScript?• ECMA-262 is a specification for a scripting

language• JavaScript, ActionScript etc. are dialects• Adobe is heavily involved in defining ECMA-262 4th

Edition, the basis on which ActionScript 3.0 is built

• The new virtual machine in the Flash Player has been open sourced (November 2006) and donated to Mozilla for use in a future version of the Firefox browser

www.mozilla.org/projects/tamarin/


Flash Player 9• New virtual machine added for ActionScript 3.0• Optimized for performance


Flash Player 9 Statistics• December 2007 survey indicates 93,4% adoption in

Europe


Really?• Yes and no• There is a huge install base, much higher than any other browser plug-in

• Doesn't show individual dot releases• Flash Player adoption within corporate environments can be significantly lower


In the beginning there was…


"A Brief History of Timeline"

• 1997 - Macromedia acquires FutureWave

• Add support for stereo sound, bitmaps, library and release it as Flash 2



• 1998 - Macromedia Flash 3 released• Adds support for movie clips, alpha transparency and JavaScript integration



• 1999 - Macromedia Flash 4 released• Support for input text fields, streaming MP3 and variables, loops, conditionals



• 2000 - Macromedia Flash 5 released• ActionScript 1.0, HTML text fields and bezier pen tool are introduced



• 2002 - Macromedia Flash MX released• Adds FLV video support, external MP3, Unicode and components



• 2004 - Macromedia Flash 2004 released

• ActionScript 2.0, data components, data binding, screens based authoring



• 2005 - Macromedia Flash 8 is released

• Adds new video codec with alpha transparency, filters, blend modes


Adobe acquires Macromedia• Announced on April 18th 2005• $3.4 billion offered for Macromedia• Start work on integration Creative Suite with Macromedia Studio products


ActionScript gets decoupled• ActionScript is no longer unique to the Flash authoring environment

• Flash Platform emerges Flash Flex Flash Lite AIR


Flex SDK goes open source• April 25th 2007 - Flex SDK (command line compiler, component framework,…) get released under an MPL license

• Lowers the threshold for adopting ActionScript 3.0 and MXML


Open Source Flash?• Flash community has always been very open to sharing code

• Initiative by Aral Balkan, May 2005 www.osflash.org

• Open Source open doors

http://www.osflash.org/


What changed in ActionScript 3.0?

• API consistency, everything is a class

• DisplayList API• ECMAScript for XML (E4X)• DOM3 event model• Runtime errors• Namespaces• Binary sockets, ByteArray• Reflection API• …


API consistency

• No more underscores myMC._x -> myMC.x myMC._alpha -> myMC.alpha

• Values from 0 to 1 rather than 0 to 100 myMC.alpha = .5; // 50 percent transparent

• No more createNewMovieClip, attachMovie var myMC:MovieClip = new MovieClip(); var tf:TextField = new TextField();


DisplayList API

• Instances can be created in memory• Automatic depth management, more more getNextHighestDepth()

• Allows re-parenting of display objects

var myMC:MovieClip = new MovieClip();mcHolder1.addChild(myMC);// move myMC to be a child of mcHolder2mcHolder2.addChild(myMC);


ECMAScript for XML (E4X)

• XML is a native data type• Retrieve, filter nodes using dot notation

<?xml version="1.0"><addressbook> <contact name="John"> <email>[email protected]</email> </contact> <contact name="Wayne"> <email>[email protected]</email> </contact></addressbook>


ECMAScript for XML (E4X)

Before

myXML.firstChild.childNodes[0].firstChild.nodeValue

ActionScript 3.0

myXML..contact.(@name=="John").email


DOM3 Event Model• W3C - DOM Level 3 Event specification

• Constants for event names MouseEvent.MOVE TimerEvent.TIMER

• Supports event bubbling


Runtime error checking• Flash Player 9 does runtime error checking• Error dialog when debug Flash Player is installed


Namespaces• Namespaces are introduced for XML and to differentiate methods

• Using the 'use' keyword the compiler knows the scope of which particular namespace to use


Binary Sockets• flash.net.Socket class allows data to be sent over a socket connection

• Makes it possible to implement all sorts of protocols directly in ActionScript 3.0: IRC, POP3, SMTP, FTP,…


Reflection API• Classes can describe themselves• Return an XML document with all public methods, properties, inheritance chain.

• describeType()


AlivePDF• ActionScript 3.0 library for creating PDF documents on the fly

• Created by Thibault Imbert

www.alivepdf.org


FZip• AS3 Library to read in .zip files• Created by Claus Wahlers

www.codeazur.com.br/lab/fzip/


FC64• Commodore 64 emulator• Created by Claus Wahlers and Darron Schall

www.osflash.org/fc64


FlashVNC• VNC client written in ActionScript 3.0

• Created by Darron Schall

www.osflash.org/fvnc


Papervision3D• High performance ActionScript 3D engine

• Project started by Carlos Ulloa

www.papervision3d.org


What will the future bring?• Further compliance to ECMA-262• Inverse Kinematics API,…• Tamarin-Tracing VM


Want to learn more?• Books

Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0 Essential ActionScript 3.0

• Online resources weblogs.macromedia.com/mxna www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/

• Course SkillsMatter - Core ActionScript: Object Oriented ActionScript in Practice• April 17-18th• July 10-11th


Q&A• What do you think?• What features are you most excited about?• What is still missing?

… win a book!


Thanks!• Feel free to get in touch

Blog: www.peterelst.com Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/peterelst Twitter: peterelst

http://www.peterelst.com/

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.linkedin.com/in/peterelst

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history of flash

flash community

macromedia flash mx

released actionscript

open source flash

flash flex flash lite

debug flash player

objectoriented actionscript