HODGEDEV FLASH BLOG

Click here to watch FlashDevelop3 R2 and the Flex 3.3 SDK video tutorial Part 04: How to create an AIR application.

This short video shows you how to create an AIR project.

First, the Descriptor file (setting the namespace to 1.5) and changing any other settings you wish.
Second, edit the CreateCertificate.bat and create a certificate.
Third, edit the PackageApplication.bat, compile your application to create a swf, then run PackageApplication.bat, provide the password set in CreateCertificate.bat and the AIR application is created in the air folder.

Stay tuned for a run-through of the AIR Update Framework, which allows users to check for updates which is dictated by a UpdateDescriptor file on your server somewhere.

Click here to watch FlashDevelop3 R2 and the Flex 3.3 SDK Part 02: Packages, Classes and drawing API, oh my!

This part of the series starts off by displaying the Actionscript3 API site;

First, I explain where to learn information about things like Sprite and Event, which were automatically imported and implemented by FlashDevelop3 when we created our project.

Second, we head over to http://blog.greensock.com/ and download TweenMax, though we will only be using TweenLite today (TweenLite included with TweenMax download).

Third, we extract the package into our Actionscript3 class path folder, if you do not already have one, this is a common grounds for you to keep classes and packages, please create one, make note of where you created it, we will be requiring that path in FlashDevelop3 in the next step. Now extract the “gs” folder into the newly created class path folder.

Fourth, we head over to FlashDevelop3 and we select the project from the project tree, mine is on the right, right mouse click on the project name and go to properties. Once the popup arrives, head to the Classpaths tab, and click the Add Classpath button. Be sure to input the location of the class path. NOTE: This path does not include the “gs” folder at the end, we will reference packages in this classpath in their import lines.

Example:
import gs.TweenLite;

Fifth, we import the flash.display.Graphics class, create a new Sprite and draw to it using an instance of the Graphics class.

Sixth, we animate the Sprite we drew to using TweenLite. With one line of code, we have an easy to manage animation with a nice looking Elastic ease applied to it, and it only took twenty seconds to write the animation code out.

Stay tuned for part 03, I hope this is helpful.

Click here to watch FlashDevelop3 R2 and the Flex 3.3 SDK Part 01: Setup and Hello World!

I have a friend that is eager to learn flash and Actionscript3, but does not have the money to buy the Flash IDE. I told my friend he could just download FlashDevelop3 and the Flex 3.3 SDK to compile with. My friend didn’t respond so fast to that on IM; I had lost him. It occurred to me to start a small series of tutorials explaining how to compile a SWF with the Flash IDE or Flex Builder 3.

Things to note:
*Flex 3.3 SDK is not the same thing as Flex Builder 3, nor is it the same as the Flex 3 Framework.
*FlashDevelop3 is free, as is the Flex 3 SDK used to compile.
*Most strong AS3 developers seem to be moving out of Flash and away from the time-line, this could leap you forward a great deal to start off with; That being said, it is still important to understand the time-line and other parts of the Flash IDE.

Good luck, stay tuned for part two where we talk about importing classes, specifically TweenLite. We create rectangle using the drawing API and animate with TweenLite.