What is an 'action' layer in Adobe Gaming SDK context? - actionscript-3

Question

I am using IntelliJ and Adobe Gaming SDK (Adobe Air & AS3) to learn how to write a game. In the tutorial I'm following, the author mentions an 'action layer' in an the main .fla file. This is about mid-way down the page.
I don't have a main .fla file, just .as source files. Is there a place for me to put the kind of code to which the author is referring? Here is a snippet:
stop();
//setting vars to step in for turns and special blocks
var S:String = 'START';
var F:String = 'FINISH';
var U:String = 'UP';
var R:String = 'RIGHT';
var D:String = 'DOWN';
var L:String = 'LEFT';
var startDir:String;//the direction the enemies go when they enter
var finDir:String;//the direction the enemies go when they exit
// ...and more
It appears that as some examples have demonstrated, this is where key mapping/binding would also be added for event handlers, etc.
My question is, since I am not using the Flex SDK, and have a pure ActionScript module, where do I put this type of source?

Answer 1

This is just typically the layer in the IDE that people put the majority of their code in. It's just a way of organizing stuff. There can be specific reasons to put things in different layers for utility purposes but usually this is more of an organizational technique than anything else. In other words I wouldn't worry about replicating that part too much.
So more to the point, there isn't such a thing as an "actions layer" per se, rather, the author of that tutorial is making a new layer to write some code in and he named the layer "actions" which has been a common method.

Answer 2

I don't have a main .fla file, just .as source files.
So does pretty much every development environment (including the Flex SDK) except Adobe Flash/Animate.
If a resource mentions layers, it is employing Adobe Flash/Animate as the tool.
The problem is, it provides much more than just layers: there are drawing tools, a library, etc. That's why I would not recommend following that tutorial. It will continue to mention tools and workflows specific to Adobe Flash/Animate, that will not apply to your tools and there might not be a simple substitute.
You wouldn't want to follow this tutorial anyway as it's full of bad practices.
On the website of the Adobe Gaming SDK it is mentioned that it comes with all kinds of examples and resources. I suggest that you checkout those and try to get started with them. It's very hard to find good quality resources for Actionscript (not saying there are none), which is why it's a good idea to stick with the official resources.
where do I put this type of source?
That depends on what the source is doing. Some of it might go into the constructor of a class, functions might become methods of a class, etc. Object oriented code usually has more structure than the imperative code you see there, which means that there's no 1 to 1 conversion. It takes experience with the language to make a good translation between the two. As you are just starting out, a tutorial based on Adobe Flash/Animate is not the best starting point.