What are Flash and Actionscript? Here’s Wikipedia’s definitions:
- Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to Web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements and games. More recently, it has been positioned as a tool for “Rich Internet Applications” (“RIAs”).
- ActionScript is a scripting language developed by Adobe. It is a dialect of ECMAScript (meaning it has the same syntax and semantics of the more widely known JavaScript), and is used primarily for the development of websites and software targeting the Adobe Flash Player platform, used on Web pages in the form of embedded SWF files.
Here are a few online resources people are talking about (courtesy of a discussion at the Flash Freelancers group on LinkedIn.com):
- youtube.com: Youtube has some great instructional videos, you can watch someone actually using the software, not just read about it. Search Youtube for ‘learning flash’ or similar.
- actionscript.org: there’s a whole archive of tutorials and reference files, and a big forum. People have always been very helpful to people posing questions (just be through and precise when you ask questions).
- gotoandlearn.com: (video tutorials, forums with great resources)
- kirupa.com
- Lynda.com: It’s $25 per/month but well worth it.
Here’s a one day free pass: http://www.lynda.com/promo/freepass/Default.aspx?lpk35=240 - google.com: search google for AS3 for a list of resources
- video2brain.com: Flash training by DVD from video2brain at http://www.video2brain.com/en/
- flashexplained.com
Hopefully that helps! Now get crackin!