Hi everyone,

I am happy to announce our new Flash CS4 video tutorials are finally ready! It only took me a year to get Santo (the author of the video tutorial course) to finally do it – better late than never I suppose.

… I have to tell you, wrangling up good video authors is like herding cats!

Check out this sample video on using the Flash Bones tool:

You can find more sample videos on the Flash CS4 video tutorial home page and in this coming months Web Designer Magazine.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com

I recently got this email:

I have read or watched a few of the items about flash, but still have not gotten an answer to a big question I have.

Here is the question with a little of my background first. I’m a career programmer/developer having gotten my degree in 1972, I have been in the business ever since.

… I have done some web development for the last 4 years. Not full time, just part time. I spend most of my time developing and maintaining MS Access databases, using VBA to control whatever needs to be controlled. With that background, I would like better control over the UI within a web page and have the feeling that Flash is the tool to use, but I have not been able to find a good summary of what is possible with flash, from an interactive standpoint.

The short answer to this question is: YES.

Flash has evolved from being an web animation program to a full fledged application framework. It includes built in drag-and-drop UI components, data binding along with a powerful object oriented language that looks like a cross between Java and Javascript: Flash Actionscript.

Since Flash is a vector based engine, it provides a pixel accurate layout capability … that means you can produce any type of layout / UI you could possibly want for your application.

Adobe has created a framework for Flash called Flex. This extends Flash and provides a very rich set of tools for building applications for both the Web and the desktop. To get you Flash based applications on the desktop, Adobe has created the Air framework.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

Hi,

I’m happy to announce this great new video on Actionscript.

A few points:

Actionscript has gone through a few major changes that make it increasingly more powerful. But, on the downside, Actioscript has gotten a little more complex along the way.

The following video is designed to introduce you the major differences between Actionscript 1, 2 and 3.

Check it out.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

Hi,

This is just the first of many new video tutorials on Flash CS3 (and the upcoming Flash CS4) and Actionscript 3.0.

Video: Nested Movie Clips in Flash CS3

Summary of the video tutorial:

Using Nested Animations in Movie Clips with Flash CS 3
By: Santo Romano
Tutorial level: Beginner to intermediate Flash users.
Flash version: Flash MX, MX2004, CS2, and CS3

When creating simple animations in Flash, the main timeline is often the best place to position your animations. However, when these animations are repetitive, the best way to handle them is to utilize the movie clip symbol in Flash. Unlike the other symbols you’ll find in the Flash environment, the Movie clip symbol is perfectly suited to handle this kind of work. Rather than creating multiple key frames over and over again, it is much better to nest the simple animation inside of a Movie Clip, and to let it handle most of the work.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

Up until Flash CS3, I think Flash had been slowly drifting into becoming a niche market technology. But now, Flash CS3 (and the Flash player 9) puts Flash back into the game as an important player.

… This means that it now makes more sense for web developers to learn Flash technology. I go over some of the details below.

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