Programming Flash Communication Server

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

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

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Preface

• Robust, deployment-ready code is not conducive to learning a topic. The book

often presents pared-down examples, but the web site has full-blown code exam-

ples in both AS 1.0 and AS 2.0 format, when appropriate.

ActionScript 1.0 Versus ActionScript 2.0

The ActionScript 2.0 examples must be compiled in the Flash MX 2004 or Flash MX

Professional 2004 authoring environment. To make sure the AS 2.0 examples com-

pile, you should set the ActionScript version to ActionScript 2.0 under File

➝ Pub-

lish Settings ➝ Flash. All examples have been tested in Flash Player 7.

In ActionScript 2.0, all custom class definitions must be placed in external .as files.

For example, the custom Whatever class must be placed in an external plain text file

named Whatever.as (both the capitalization of the name and the .as extension are

mandatory). You can create and edit such a file in Flash MX Professional 2004 if you

select File

➝ New ➝ ActionScript File. If using Flash MX 2004, you’ll need an exter-

nal text editor.

We can’t give a full course on OOP and ActionScript 2.0 here, although we do try to

provide pointers throughout the book. For many more details on ActionScript 2.0

classes and object-oriented development, see Essential ActionScript 2.0 (O’Reilly).

Most examples can also be exported in Flash Player 6 format from Flash MX 2004

(standard or Professional edition), by setting the Export format to Flash Player 6

under File

➝ Publish Settings ➝ Flash.

However, methods that are new to Flash MX 2004 and Flash Player 7 won’t work if

you are exporting to Flash Player 6 format.

The previous version of the Flash authoring tool, Flash MX, does not support

ActionScript 2.0. However, many of the AS 1.0 code examples will work in Flash

MX.

In some cases, this book uses timeline-based code, which, although it is not necessar-

ily a best practice, is supported for both ActionScript 1.0 and ActionScript 2.0. We

made this choice when an example didn’t benefit markedly from using ActionScript

2.0 classes. This makes the examples easier to follow and implement in both Flash

MX and Flash MX 2004.

Some of the class-based OOP examples written in ActionScript 2.0 won’t compile in

ActionScript 1.0 and require Flash MX 2004 (standard or Professional edition). If

you are still using ActionScript 1.0 in Flash MX 2004, consider this an opportunity to

broaden your horizons and use AS 2.0.