Hi I am a Student in Norway looking for a good general tutorial on Action Script and how to use it,and what it's for.
I have been looking around google for a while and I can't seem to find any good or "simple" way to learn or even understand how it works.
sites i've been too:
(http://www.actionscript.org/resources/categories/Tutorials/)
(http://www.flashandmath.com/)
(http://tutorials.flashmymind.com/)
(http://tutorialoutpost.com/tutorials/flash/actionscript)
(http://www.tutorialguide.net/programming/actionscript/)
(http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/actionscript/)
(http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash/index.htm)
(http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com/actionscript.html)
(http://www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript.html)
So what do I want to know ?
Basic scripting to advanced scripting.
Where it's best to use action script. (best functions)
A simple yet efficient explenation that alot of people might understand.(if possible)
So if there is any way you guys might be able to help me with this little problem of mine I would be forever in your debt.
and thanks in advance for any info that might come my way, even if it helps me or not.
Check out this too: http://www.gotoandlearn.com/. It has some good free tutorials, but if I remember correctly, you need to pay for the full series!..
And the best approach to learn something is to read the documentation while working on something! Try create a game/small site/interactive animation/etc and when you are stuck, search the answer or ask for help!
ActionScript is similar to Java and C++ but different. It runs on the Flash Player. It is generally used for applications ranging from online games to video players to Rich Internet Applications.
Flash can be developed from 2 perspectives:
Designer's perspective: This approach consists of drawing objects, shapes etc on a stage like you do in an image editing software, and then animating / adding actions to the drawn objects. You develop this in Flash Professional (Link here)
Developer's perspective: This approach consists of developing using the Flex framework, from an IDE (Flash Builder)
Check these out. I learnt it by looking at various tutorials on the net (do a Google search, you'll find plenty), so you can learn from the net as you go.
I often recommend Colin Moock's Lost Actionscript Week End video tutorials , it's an excellent resource if you want to grasp the general concept behind AS3 and leaves you with enough understanding so that you're able to tackle books on Object Oriented programming, AS3 language reference, basically tools that you will eventually need when you get deeper into the subject.
http://tv.adobe.com/show/colin-moocks-lost-actionscript-weekend
Why don´t you try the official Google Action Script documentation? You can find it at https://developers.google.com/apps-script/ . I fount it very useful and easy to understand... It is very well organized and there are many examples with diverse grade of complexity. For example: you have there 5-minutes overview for your first Google Action Scrpipt https://developers.google.com/apps-script/overview#what_can_apps_script_do
And if you are looking for a more complex example, you can go forward to end-to-end examples: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/articles/bracket_maker
That is my first reference point with Google Action Script...
Related
This Question about how do i learn from basic As3 to advanced as3 , as i want to become professional in as3.And work as freelancer.
can anybody guide me how to reach to the peak of Action-Script-3.
This question seems to be really funny to many but this is the most basic question in my mind
1) which way to go.
2) what steps i should follow.
3) how should i do my first project professionally.
4) how do i become excellent in as3
I believe actionscript 3.0 and Flash in general allows you work on a wide variety of projects:
from interactive rich media web interfaces, to interactive video, animation, games, desktop applications, rich internet applications, physical installations, creative and abstract pieces, etc.
It's up to you what you want to do, but I'm guessing if you start with something that motivates you, something that you enjoy working on and learning, it's a sure way forward
and it will make the boring bits more fun, and that's what it should be about: FUN!
It doesn't matter if it's actionscript or something else you want to learn, enjoy learning/challenging yourself and you'll get there faster than you think.
Answer 1.):
With regards to actionscript, based on what you want to do with it, there are a couple of good starts. Let's say you're interested in just the code, not planning to use the Flash IDE much or at all, and your aim to develop great applications. as #David Morrow said, Colin Moock's Essential Actionscript 3.0 is great. Also his guide From the Ground Up is a compressed version of the book.
An easier lecture, but packed with hands-on tips to getting things done in actionscript 3.0 is Rich Shupe's Learning Actionscript 3.0, also from O'Reilly. This might help you get up to speed with project you might have in mind.
Answer 2.) and 3.):
In short you have at least two routes:
easy/practical start where you learn
by doing small mini projects, but
keep in mind there are gaps to fill
in order to move on to complex
projects
a 'harder'/more theory based start,
that will cover advanced topics, so
you will ready to take most projects
out there, simple or complex.
Answer 4.):
It also important to keep in mind that there is no substitute for experience! Learn how ever it feels comfortable, but plan time for practicing/writing a lot of code/failing/fixing/repeating. Don't worry about getting things wrong! I don't know any programmer that can write a complex project perfectly from start to finish. Basically all projects out there are the result of this loops of failing/fixing/learning/ if you want to put it this way.
Never be afraid of getting things wrong ! You learn more this way, than getting things right, but not fully understanding why, also, you can discover something new. You can't run
into happy accidents if you don't have accidents at all.
As you progress you will like some things more than others. It is important to try everything when you learn. Knowing what you don't like is just as important as knowing what you like. Don't take everything for granted and form your opinions while learning.
You mentioned peaks. It's great to aim high. As I mentioned earlier, actionscript can be used for so many things, that it's hard to be the best in all areas. Andre Michelle and Joa Ebert for example are very talented developers and have a lot of experience with sound. Chris Georgenes on the other hand is a very talented animator. I wouldn't expect roles to swap anytime soon. If it helps, choose people that are actionscript virtuosos, get inspired by their works, there are plenty of them out there.
HTH,
George
understand OOP classes and packages.
Inheritance and polymorphism
keep all content in external xml files
dont ever put any code in your fla
start building a library of reusable classes for common tasks ( a util library )
start working with the Essential Actionscript 3.0 and you are on your way...
read and understand this entire book and you will be rolling
The simplest, yet probably most important answer is: Use it.
The only way you'll become advanced in AS3 (or any language) is to just start using it. Do some experiments, maybe create some small tools for yourself, or find an open source app and start contributing to it.
Books will help, but they're no substitute for actual experience using the language.
As they say, you need to learn to crawl before you can walk.
You need a solid understanding of programming. See David Morrow's answer for things you should know. Also add to the list a knowledge of datastructures.
Start programming. As George Profenza said, start with a simple project first and something that you will enjoy doing. If you undertake something too big you may end up disillusioned. The best thing about working on little things often is that you will encounter certain problems, and you will learn through experience on how to tackle them.
Once you have the basic hang of things start looking at other people's source code. Visit blogs of various well known flash developers and go through their code. Learn from the best. My blogrole is a list of such people.
After a while, maybe a year or so you will be a decent AS3 programmer. Remember AS3 is just a tool. What seperates the men from the boys is being able to solve problems. Start tackling more complex problems, for example, develop a voxel engine or something along those lines. The best programmers tend to experiment with problems in the field of computer science. In doing so, they become knowledgable on various things like 3D rendering, Audio etc and develop unique skills placing them on the cutting edge.
Well I'm a visual programmer, i only learn as a means to an end - I want to make things.
If you are as i am - then here's what I recommend to go from basic AS3 to advanced AS3.
Make a game. OR, and this might be an even better route.
Clone a game that you like - e.g. tetris, bomberman, pacman
I know it a single statement answer.... not fancy, but - you will HAVE to learn so much in the process of creating it.
So I've spent the last few days looking for a way to create a simple image drawing app with wxPython, and I think the key to doing just that is understanding how to use Device Contexts. The problem is that the wxPython demo program doesn't demonstrate DCs, and the docs for both wxPython and wxWidgets don't explain as much as I'd like to know so I've decided to try and 'reverse engineer' an existing app to see how its done.
The first problem I have is that I don't know of any drawing apps written in wxPython (or any written in Python for that matter o.o), and the second is I don't know how I'd go about doing it. Am I right in saying that I'm going to need a copy of an application's Python source and something like Winpdb? What do professional programmers do when they find themselves in a situation like mine, needing answers that the docs don't provide?
If you need to understand the concepts, but the docs don't cut it, it's worth it to look at docs for similar APIs. In the case of drawing contexts, there are a lot of similar APIs in other languages. Java has Swing for instance.
Reverse engineering is easier in tools that aren't big event-driven GUI things. The converse is that event-driven GUI things tend to copy each other, so you only need to figure them out once or twice before they all make sense.
In .NET world, I have Reflector as indispensable tool.
In my company, we use to program SharePoint websites. There are many "gotchas" we just figure out by reverse engineering that product assemblies, exactly because documentation is plain wrong, just missing or simply doesn't exists.
I remember stumbling onto a list of basic algorithms to implement in a new language to get your head around how the language does thing, but I seem to have lost the link to it.
What simple tasks/code snippets would you recomend one undertakes to pick get a good feeling of a language?
I'm not talking developing large applications or anything the kind of things I'm thinking about are writing a linked list then extending it to a doubly linked list. Implementing various sort/search algorithms, etc.
Excercises that would help somone who knows how to program in one language get up to speed as quickly as possible in a new language.
I usually take a couple of random problems from Project Euler: http://projecteuler.net/
I like the exercises from CodeKata. They are not too easy and not too difficult. Strech your mind with them!
I really do like the problems at spoj.pl. Can be done in quite some lanuages. Yours may be one of those.
I read somewhere that creating a Blog is the HelloWorld 2.0, I saw you don't want big applications but I found worth to share this
You might try this list from JobSnake to familiarize yourself with a new programming language.
Attempting to write compiler/interpreter for it. This opens up many obscure corners of the language and also makes you understand the reasons behind features of the language.
Everytime I have/want to learn a new project, I force myself to find something to code.
But to be sure I did it well, I always want to be able to check my code and what it ouputs.
To do so, I just try to do the same kind of stuff with languages I know and to compare the outputs. For that, I created a little project (hosted on Github) with an exercise sheet and the correction for every language I learnt. It's a good way to learn in my opinion because it gives you a real little project.
I am designing software that needs to draw several different kinds of charts--bar charts, pie charts, flow charts/graphs, charts over time. I am looking for resources related to both the programming side of the issue as well as the UI/display side. Books, online resources would all be helpful. Thanks.
It does depend on the language a bit: here may be some pointers for you. Hope they help:
code.google.com/apis/chart/
home.gna.org/pychart
Practical C# Charts and Graphics
The Excel library can be imported by the Office API, but it does require you to have Excel installed.
Gnuplot
The grammar of graphics: book from the guy that wrote the plotting lib of spss. Somewhat theoretical, but nice xml treatment... gives you the graph xml schema for spss.
But I'm sure there are quite a few others that other people will know.
Do you have to draw it your self. If you want to save time (and probably money) then you can try embedding one of these into your apps http://code.google.com/apis/chart/
Ditto with Chris; If you are developing a new way of building charts, that's great!
Assumption: I have no idea of your needs but it would initially strike me (and thus form my assumption) that you are trying to develop a better charting software and that's usually interface.
Consider checking out the libraries in other programming languages that already do charting.
Adobe Flex/Air have one, PHP does, Java Does, .NET does.. etc.
Checking out the existing charing libraries for your language of choice helps a lot. In my case, it helped so much I decided not to write my own. ;)
For .net apps we settled on .netCharting, which can be pretty amazing.
The real lesson I took from it though, is this: there are way, way more kinds of charts than I thought there were, and I work with a lot of charts. Make sure you end up with something modular enough to handle clicking in new chart types / configurations with minimal effort.
You want to take a look at EyeSee.
http://moose.unibe.ch/tools/eyesee
I'm not really asking about how programmers learn how to program. More about specific technologies. If I wanted to learn Hibernate, how do I know what I should know prior to Hibernate? Should I learn JPA before, during or after Hibernate? Is there a better solution to Hibernate? (And I'm not really looking for information on Hibernate specifically)
Maybe stackoverflow is the place to find these answers, but it seems like with the shear vastness of frameworks, apis, libraries, programming languages, platforms, and whatever other techie word you want to use, it takes an extremely long time to come up to speed on what technology to use, when and what you need to know prior to using it.
Sometimes the best way to learn is to just dig in to a framework. Sure, you could use someones wrapper API around something, but if there is something wrong w/ hibernate, then you wouldn't know what's happening.
And to answer "how do i know what i should know prior to hibernate", you don't, that's why you are learning. When learning about c++, started out with simple data types, but i didn't know about pointers yet, didn't need to, but i learned about them when i got there. Just gotta jump in and start playing around.
I use Wikipedia to compare various technologies to copmlete a task, although it can be incomplete with regards to commercial closed-source frameworks (probably because fewer people have access to them).
For specific technologies such as Hibernate, Java, JPA, LDAP (OpenLDAP in particular), Log4J, anything Apache: they all have wikis and/or forums associated with the product that are usually more helpful than a Google search for learning. Many even come with tutorials and you should try them.
Find a book on the subject and read it. Then email the author with additional questions. Most of these authors are more than happy to help especially if you've bought and read the materials they worked so hard to produce.
If that's still not enough for you, go to a conference covering the subject, if you can make it. Again you can meet many of the people responsible for maintaining and/or creating these technologies and I've found they are always willing to answer questions.
go to sites like Coding Horror, Slashdot, Techcrunch etc and find out what people are talking about. Usually if something is popular it's probably something you might want to talk a look at.
There are these things called "books" that are filled with all kinds of knowledge.
A lot of the time the documentation and/or tutorial for any technology or project will mention what prior knowledge is assumed or useful.
So for example hibernate: http://www.hibernate.org/hib_docs/v3/reference/en/html_single/#tutorial-intro
"This tutorial is intended for new users of Hibernate but requires Java and SQL knowledge"
For me, the things that have helped my career and taught me what questions to ask are:
Podcasts -- .NET Rocks, etc., which introduce and discuss new technologies and put them in context
Join your local users group, and stick around after the presentation to talk shop with the folks there; you can learn a lot just by hearing what other people are doing and what they are working on learning next
Just look around online and start trying to use whatever tool/technology your trying to learn. As you try to learn one thing, you'll realize your lacking knowledge in other needed areas. at which point you can repeat the process of looking around for this new item you need to learn.
for example, maybe you want to learn Rails, so you start following rails tutorials, but you realize you suck at Ruby. so then you start to focus a bit more on the details of Ruby, then come back to Rails with a little more knowledge and continue on till the next roadblock. this isn't really totally correct, but you get the idea.
you won't always find a full guide of how to use everything. just give it a shot and work it out on your own if you have the time
There is an infinite number of things one could learn. Maybe a better approach would be to think of a project that interests you, or join an open source one, and then learn what you need to know to accomplish what is needed in that project. When you're done, pick a new project that might include new things not learned in the last project.
As far as free sources are concerned, as a .NET programmer I like www.asp.net, and there are many others, such as the ASP.NET quickstart tutorials at http://quickstarts.asp.net/QuickStartv20/default.aspx, C-SharpCorner is good, too, if you don't mind C#.
If you don't object to paying a little money, Lynda.com is a decent place. They have OK tutorials on all kinds of things, not just programming, and I got a decent grounding in Javascript using one of their tutorials. They are adding new things all the time, so if they don't have something on Hibernate now, they may later on. I think their basic rate is $25 per month, but you can just pay for one month and then soak up as many courses as you can find time for.
Asking a more specific question will get your a more specific answer here. When I want to read up on something I usually head to Wikipedia and then Google.
The truth is none of us have the time to read everything we'd like to. So I let someone else do it for me!
The way I solve this is by speed-reading the web - aka. subscribing and reading to other peoples blogs.
Everytime I come across something I'm not familiar with I google it.