1. FLASH Presenters: Tin Hoang Andrew Mcdonald Mehran Panahi Akhavan Matthew Tang

2. Agenda Flash History Animation Action Script Accessibility Criticism Questions

3. Flash History Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Jonathan Gay – creator of FutureSplash Macromedia bought and renamed to Flash 1.0 2005 Adobe bought Macromedia

4. Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Basic animation concepts: frames –individual frames –Keyframes –blank frames Timeline Stage Animation

5. Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Types of animation: Motion http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/motion_t ween.htm http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/motion_t ween.htm Shape http://www.webwasp.co.uk/tutorials/001/index.php http://www.webwasp.co.uk/tutorials/001/index.php Guided Motion http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Guided-motion- tween-animation-create-an-air-chase/13548 http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Guided-motion- tween-animation-create-an-air-chase/13548 Animation

6. Introduction to Action Script Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Actionscript in itself is a very flexible language. There are very few constraints to the type of code you can write and execute. This makes Actionscript a very moldable yet volitile and unstable langauge. Semicolons are not needed on the end of code lines but should be used for code clarity.

7. Arrays Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Associative arrays are used in Actionscript. This means that arrrays can be referenced with keys which are numeric, strings, or concatenated variables and string. myArray[2] = 56; myArray["id"] = 78; myArray["id" + i]

8. Arrays Continued. Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions This makes using a for loop to traverse through an array more difficult than usual. However, there are special conventions in Actionscript which allows a for loop to access an entire array. for (var i in frames) {... }

9. Casting Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions There is no true casting in Actionscript; however, "new" can be used. This is important for numbers made from a string arguement. var i:String = "5"; var j:Number = new Number(i);

10. Delegate Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions When eventhandlers are used, the reference to 'this' has finicky behaviour. It may not necessarily refer to the object you intend to. The delegate function ensures the proper reference to objects within a movie clip.

11. Delegate Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions If delegate is not used and you import a nested movie clip, every reference to 'this' will refer to the parent clip. When using delegate, this will ensure that all 'this' references talk about the parent movie clip or the nested movie clip, depending on where the 'this' is located.

12. Delegate Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions In most cases, the delegate is not necessary but is good practice to include it. Delegate has only one function, create. Include the following line of code in either your constructor or your initializer. onLoad = Delegate.create(this, onLoadScreen); This will let the page load, and continues the code execution in onLoadScreen.

13. Delegate Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions For a more in-depth explaination refer to the Actionscript.org tutorial. http://actionscript.org/tutorials/beginner/the_delegat e_class/index.shtml

14. Dynamic Components Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Classloader is used to create a new instance of a class that extends MovieClip. The first parameter is the owner of the newly created object. The second is the class of the object, which can accept a string or the class itself. The third is the unique instance ID. The forth is the depth at which the new instance is initialized. The last one is the list of modified parameters for the new object to take on.

15. Dynamic Components Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions // This is a sample of how to dynamically create a button. ClassLoader.createClassInstance( this, componentClass, "buttonName", getNextHighestDepth(), { fontSize:21, width:350, height:40, _x:209, _y:225 }); attachMovie and createEmptyMovieClip can also be used depending on the purpose.

16. Event Listeners Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions private function thisFunction():Void () { this["buttonName"].addEventListener("click", this, "buttonEvent"); } private function buttonEvent():Void {... }

17. Functions Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Most functions are declared like in Java or C++. [scope] functionName([parameters]) {... } private myFunction():Void {... }

18. Functions Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions A unique feature is that, variable properties can be bound to functions. This can be done in two ways: –the variable can be bound to an already existing function or –it can be bound to a dynamically created function. onLoad = myFunction; // or onLoad = function() {... }

19. Global Variables Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions There are three commonly used globally accessed predefined variables. They are the following: –*_root - The highest object in the ownership heirarchy that the current object is in. –*_global - The global object is an object that can be referenced by any class anywhere in the code. –*_parent - The object that owns the current object. All MovieClips include a property called onLoad that is bound to a function. This property is called whenever the MovieClip is loaded.

20. Variable Declarations Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Variables can be used without a declaration. When variables are used without a declaration, they can be of any type. This allows for flexibility in code, however it may also result in complex bugs. It is always a good idea to declare your variables before using them.

21. Variable Properties Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Variables can contain properties, they can be created and changed at any time. aPerson = "John"; aPerson.age = 38; this["backButton"].text = "Go Back";

22. Accessibility – What is it? Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions ● To make pages on the Internet accessible to all users, especially those with disabilities.

23. Sample of Accessibility Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Some Sample of Accessibility working in a loud environment not be able to see May not be able to use keyboard or mouse

24. Why Accessibility is important Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Legislation, standards and regulation: The size of disabled population: –41 million accessible user are using the web. (world bank 2002)

25. How Accessibility works Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Screen magnifiers Hello Assistive Browser Voice Recognition Screen Readers

26. Basic Solution for accessibility with Flash Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Using accessibility panel for following objects: Text Input text fields Buttons (including button movie clips) Entire movies

27. Sample Accessibility Pages Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions ● Scalability Example http://www.webaim.org/techniques/flash/media/scale able.html http://www.webaim.org/techniques/flash/media/scale able.html ● Keyboard Example http://www.webaim.org/techniques/flash/media/intra ctvmap.html http://www.webaim.org/techniques/flash/media/intra ctvmap.html ● Microsoft Web site http://www.microsoft.com/about/brandcampaigns/inn ovation/yourpotential/main.html http://www.microsoft.com/about/brandcampaigns/inn ovation/yourpotential/main.html

28. Flash Criticisms Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions There are two main types of criticisms surrounding Flash. - Browser Issues. - Usability Issues. - Other issues.

29. Browser Issues Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Flash causes users browser to act in unexpected ways. - Back button. - Reload button. - Stop button. - Print command. - Search command.

30. Usability Issues Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Usability issues consist of web fundimentals that are not or not easily supported by Flash. - No link colors to see where you have been. - No browser control over text. - Cannot book mark specific content. - Search engines cannot easily index flash pages. - Users cannot line specific parts of flash sites.

31. Other Issues Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions Some other issues that plague flash. - HTML is easy and most users can create pages this way. Flash is difficult to learn and use. - Although flash may be common. Many browsers use have older versions and cannot display the - newer Flash.

32. Questions Flash History | Animation | Action Script | Accessibility | Criticism | Questions QUESTIONS?