Congrats.

In fact, i HAVE been mocked and jeered at by my colleagues for my beginner-level Flash articles, and most recently my entry-level book on Unity 3D. Comments like yours remind me that this stuff is valuable to beginners, and that my more experienced colleagues can go fly a kite. So thanks!

Just having that explained made so many more peices slot into place. Probably a simple thing to understand, but not getting that bit was really holding me back.

Keep up the excellent work!!!

PS: print your domain name on those Class structure diagrams – they WILL get borrowed. Nothing wrong with a bit of promotion. Search images.google.com using ‘class structure diagram’ taddah!! there it is

- Ryan

What you’re doing with ball = new Ball() is you’re referring to a special class called Ball that extends (or can do all the same stuff and more as) MovieClip. This Ball class is automagically created for you when you add a linkage name to your MovieClip in the Flash library.

Makes sense?

- Ryan

I was also surprised how Flash Develop interacts directly with CS4, like when you edit something in CS4, Develop freaks out – which I think is pretty neat how synchronized they are (especially after dealing with the Android OS for a semester of headaches!)

See people ask and you may receive!

i think you can probably solve your problem with an import statement.

You’re probably already using one for movieclip in your Main class:

import flash.display.MovieClip;

So if you have a sprite called MySprite in another package, and you want to refer to if from Main (or wherever) in another class, AND MySprite is part of the com.assets.stuffIMade package, use an import statement in Main:

import com.assets.stuffIMade.MySprite;

In FlashDevelop, MySprite should light up after a few seconds, and you should get code hinting for your MySprite class. All feexed!

Please let me know if that solves your problem.

- Ryan

i’m not a power-user by any means, but just being able to type an open { bracket, and FD automagically puts in the close } bracket for me must be saving me YEARS of typing, when you add it all up.

Another tip: i use CTRL+D a lot. It duplicates a line. i discovered it by accident when trying mistyping CTRL+S to save. If i want to change a line, but i want to comment it in case i screw things up, it’s very quick to CTRL+D to copy the line, then comment one of them and change the other.

There’s also CTRL+I, which is global find and replace. It’ll search through ALL of your .as files, recursively through all the sub-folders if you let it. VERY handy.

Exactly! I read a AS2 “dummies” book and I’ve been piecing my Java knowledge to help understand AS3, and your stuff really, really helps! I’ll keep reading!

Also, just curious, what IDE (I think that’s what they’re called) do you use for AS3? Like Flash Develop and Adobe Flex? Thanks!

Does the Flash Develop utility run on the Mac environment.

sbliss

-Tanya

- Ryan

- Ryan

public Class Main extends MovieClip –> public class Main extends MovieClip

i had to check myself after posting this article, because i thought “well, the next step is to teach people to split their code out into 20 Classes”, but then i thought “wait – hasn’t this come full circle? Isn’t that the same problem we had with spaghetti code?”

But no, it’s not quite the same thing (thank goodness). Believe it or not, splitting your code into 20 Classes can make you code faster, because you can finish writing a Class and forget about it, and it’s not taking up room in one huge long scrolling Main.as Class. Saved time on the scrolling alone is worth it. And the organization that a (free) program like FlashDevelop affords is crucial.

Hope to see more tutorials like this! :)

As with anything like this, the thing that makes the most sense is NOT doing the thing that makes the most sense – it’s doing what everyone else is doing. If this is the way that most people code, then for better or worse, it’s how you should code. Makes for less of a shock when you jump into someone else’s Class file. (Where are all the instance variables???)

Consider a structure that utilizes getter/setter methods. Not only do these methods act as if they are properties to the outside world, but they often utilize a private property, so it arguably would make sense to group them with their associated property, or at least immediately after all the properties. In both cases the constructor gets pushed below another method, which doesn’t help with readability.

And there you go, your daily dose of organizational nitpickery satisfied :)

especially nice work on the visuals.