Create a Mac Dock Style Menu with AS3
Mar 17, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flex, General, Tutorials
In this tutorial I’ll show you how to create a menu like Apple’s Dock using AS3 classes. We will create a single .as file that will perform all the magic, extending it to add new features. Final Result Preview First, let’s take a look at what we’ll be creating. Roll your mouse over the icons to see how they move and scale.
Tags: actionscript, become-a-fan, distance, facebook, Flash, function, mouse, package, sprite, stage, Tutorials
Create An Old-School MP3 Player in Flash CS4
Mar 16, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, General, Tutorials
[If you’d like to download the files used in this tutorial to practice these techniques, visit www.layersmagazine.com and navigate to the Magazine section . All files are for personal use only.] Create an old-school MP3 player out of thin air Ever since the release of Adobe AIR, Flash designers and developers have been able to use their existing skills to create full-featured desktop applications. They can continue to design and develop in Flash CS4 using the same techniques used for building Web-based Flash content and they can simply choose to deploy it as an AIR application. In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create and publish a simple, old-school MP3 player using Flash CS4 and ActionScript 3.0.
Tags: Actions, Actionscript 3.0, after-effects, AIR, file, Flash, lightroom, publish, timeline, tutorial, Tutorials, user
Thinking in Commands: Part 1 of 2
Mar 15, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flex, General, Tutorials
Simple, maintainable code is beautiful. However, when we have a sequences of actions that need to trigger each other, our code can get messy, making it impossible to change later. The Command Pattern keeps things clean. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a minimalist AS3 Command framework, capable of performing actions in sequence, in parallel, or with a delay.
Tags: actionscript, commands, complete, completion, execute, facebook-become, Flash, movie, screencasts, tutorial
Extend your Flash Application Using the Context Menu
Mar 12, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flex, General, Tutorials
A Context Menu is a menu in a graphical user interface that appears upon user interaction, such as a right-mouse click. The Flash Player context menu allows you to add custom menu items, control the display of the built-in context menu items (for example, Zoom In and Print) and create copies of menus. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to take advantage of these items. Final Result Preview Let’s take a look at the final result we will be working towards: Right-click on the different areas of the SWF to see how the context menu changes.
Tags: articles, basix, carlos-yanez, clipboard, contextmenu, facebook, Flash, function
Quick Tip: How to Communicate Between Flash and HTML
Mar 11, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flex, General, Tutorials
In this Quick Tip, we’ll look at how to use the ExternalInterface class. This allows us to write AS3 which can run JavaScript code, and vice-versa. That means you can use Flash to alter parts of the webpage in which it’s running! Step 1: Set up the Flash Document Create a new Flash ActionScript 3 document. Resize the stage to be 600×300.
Tags: action, actionscript, Actionscript 3.0, AIR, basix, become-a-fan, external, externalinterface, Flash, Flex, public-function, receivecolor, tips
Create a Retro CRT Distortion Effect Using RGB Shifting
Mar 10, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flex, General, Tutorials
In this tutorial you’ll learn how to separate an image’s three different color channels to create an RGB shift effect. I’ll also show you some graphics tricks to mimic an old CRT display. Final Result Preview Here’s an example of the effect we’ll be creating: The main takeaway in this tutorial is going to be the RGB shifting effect, but I’ll also demonstrate how to create the CRT scan lines, noise, and roll bar graphics. Step 1: About RGB Images Every image on your computer screen is displayed using the colors red, blue and green.
Tags: Actionscript 3.0, become-a-fan, displayobject, distortion, Flash, movie, stage, tutorial, Tutorials
Quick Tip: How to use Google Analytics for Tracking in Flash
Mar 8, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flash Catalyst, Flex, General, Tutorials
In this Quick Tip I’ll show you how to examine the way visitors are using your websites, widgets and games. Then we’ll look at how to improve them based on this info! Introduction Building nice looking websites is great; building websites that have a high Return Of Investment is priceless. Recently I joined the web team of a Brussels based communication agency, a team with expert knowledge in the fields of user experience design, content strategies, software development, and interaction design. We spend a lot of time on wireframes, storyboards, and prototypes, which guarantees that the functionality and the content of the websites are optimal before any graphical design takes place.
Tags: actionscript, analytics, articles, components, facebook, Flash, freebies, Tutorials
Create 3D Effects With the Stardust Particle Engine
Mar 5, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flex, General, Tutorials
In my previous tutorial Shoot Out Stars with the Stardust Particle Engine , I explained the basic workflow of Stardust. This time, we’ll take things further and examine a couple of techniques for creating true 3D particle effects! Introduction We’ll begin with a demonstration of how to use the Stardust’s native 3D engine. Then, I’ll show you how to get Stardust to work with Papervision3D; we’ll be creating 3D particle effects with Papervision3D’s Particles class and DisplayObject3D class. Previously… We’re going to pick up where we left off in the first tutorial .
Tags: Actionscript 3.0, AIR, become-a-fan, document, Flash, Flex, particle, particles, pause, Tutorials
Redesign and Other Tuts News
Mar 5, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flex, General, Tutorials
Over the last three days we’ve been steadily rolling out a new Tuts+ theme across all 8 sites. The new design is a refinement more than a big change, with lots of little improvements in usability and more suited to big screens. Read on to learn more about the redesign and lots of news about Plus! 1 The Plus Project As you may know we have some pretty big plans for these Tuts+ sites. While today they are humble little tutorial blogs, we’ve thought for some time that it would be cool to build an entire platform for education.
Tags: AIR, Animation, articles, become-a-fan, facebook-become, flickr, news, Tutorials, Twitter
Quick Tip: FireWorks to Flash in About Ten Seconds
Mar 4, 2010 AIR, Actionscript 3.0, Flash, Flash Catalyst, Flex, General, Tutorials
Sometimes, Flash just isn’t the right tool for the job at hand. It’s not great at creating textured buttons, for example. Luckily for us Adobe users, Fireworks is – and we can drag an object from Fireworks to Flash in about ten seconds. This Quick Tip will show you how.
Tags: Animation, articles, Flash, Flash Catalyst, freebies, quick tips, Tutorials, Twitter
