AS 2.0 Books

[Neo-13]

Are they any ActionScript books anyone can recommend? I'm kind of beyond the basics, but not much further than. I'm eager to learn things like classes and more advanced stuff.

[UnknownFear]

Beginning ActionScript 2.0

Aswell, there is a huge selection of AS 3.0 books available here.

[Neo-13]

At 6/24/08 09:09 AM, UnknownFear wrote: Beginning ActionScript 2.0

Aswell, there is a huge selection of AS 3.0 books available here.

That looks pretty good, thanks for the link.

If anyone has anymore recommendations I'd still very much like to hear them too. I want as broad a range as possible. Long Summer ahead... :D

[UnknownFear]

At 6/24/08 09:23 AM, Neo-13 wrote: If anyone has anymore recommendations I'd still very much like to hear them too. I want as broad a range as possible. Long Summer ahead... :D

If there is a Chapters near you, they ALWAYS have amazing computer books. Check it out here.

[Neo-13]

At 6/24/08 09:29 AM, UnknownFear wrote:

At 6/24/08 09:23 AM, Neo-13 wrote: If anyone has anymore recommendations I'd still very much like to hear them too. I want as broad a range as possible. Long Summer ahead... :D

If there is a Chapters near you, they ALWAYS have amazing computer books. Check it out here.

I live in England, and I don't think I've ever seen a Chapters store there. Oh well, they'll be alternatives I'm sure. Just gotta find them.

Again, thanks for your reply.

[Ositoozy]

At 6/24/08 09:35 AM, Neo-13 wrote:

At 6/24/08 09:29 AM, UnknownFear wrote:

At 6/24/08 09:23 AM, Neo-13 wrote: If anyone has anymore recommendations I'd still very much like to hear them too. I want as broad a range as possible. Long Summer ahead... :D

If there is a Chapters near you, they ALWAYS have amazing computer books. Check it out here.

I live in England, and I don't think I've ever seen a Chapters store there. Oh well, they'll be alternatives I'm sure. Just gotta find them.

Again, thanks for your reply.

I recommend Essential actionscript 3.0 from O reilly
Awesome book. It is at the top of the list in that amazon link.
I advice to just start with actionscript 3, if you deepen urself in AS 2 you will need
to make the move to AS 3 eventually.. so just do it now,

[Neo-13]

Nah, AS 2.0 for now, since I'm not gonna make the jump till AS 4.0 (probably). I want to leaern AS 2.0 first as it's simpler than AS 3.0.

[UnknownFear]

At 6/24/08 09:45 AM, Neo-13 wrote: Nah, AS 2.0 for now, since I'm not gonna make the jump till AS 4.0 (probably). I want to learn AS 2.0 first as it's simpler than AS 3.0.

You have the right approach. I havn't used Flash in a long time and forgot everything. If I could, I would definitely take the time and learn AS 2.0, than dive into 3.0.

[Neo-13]

Has anyone ever read the Flash 8 ActionScript Bible?

Does anyone know if it's useful or worth the money?

[mwmike]

At 6/24/08 11:03 AM, Neo-13 wrote: Has anyone ever read the Flash 8 ActionScript Bible?

Does anyone know if it's useful or worth the money?

I've looked at that before. Apparently It's good. For £26 it should be.

[DawnOfDusk]

At 6/24/08 11:03 AM, Neo-13 wrote: Has anyone ever read the Flash 8 ActionScript Bible?

Does anyone know if it's useful or worth the money?

I have it. Although I haven't looked through it much (sports, job, my game (below)) I really don't have time to just look through something, but when I find one small thing I need, it never disappoints me.

It taught me API also =)

I've looked at your stuff (your tutorial), and by the looks of it if you want another thing to branch onto for AS2, this is the way to go.

I got mine of Ebay, and every book comes w/ a companion disk, so if you can't understand what their talking about in the book (which is highly unlikely) or you just don't feel like typing out tons of code, they have examples that are the same of which that they talk about in the book. About 750ish pages of pure AS goodness =).

[mwmike]

At 6/24/08 12:31 PM, DawnOfDusk wrote: I got mine of Ebay, and every book comes w/ a companion disk, so if you can't understand what their talking about in the book (which is highly unlikely) or you just don't feel like typing out tons of code, they have examples that are the same of which that they talk about in the book. About 750ish pages of pure AS goodness =).

Sounds cool, I've been looking around for one. I will try to get that one. The UK version of Ebay only has one AS book on at the moment so I'm looking on Amazon.

[DawnOfDusk]

At 6/24/08 12:47 PM, mwmike wrote:

Sounds cool, I've been looking around for one. I will try to get that one. The UK version of Ebay only has one AS book on at the moment so I'm looking on Amazon.

When you buy it though, try to make sure it has the disc, it helps quite a bit.

[mwmike]

At 6/24/08 12:59 PM, DawnOfDusk wrote:

At 6/24/08 12:47 PM, mwmike wrote:

Sounds cool, I've been looking around for one. I will try to get that one. The UK version of Ebay only has one AS book on at the moment so I'm looking on Amazon.

When you buy it though, try to make sure it has the disc, it helps quite a bit.

I will. 26 quid is too much for the book without disks!

[Moo12321]

At 6/24/08 11:03 AM, Neo-13 wrote: Has anyone ever read the Flash 8 ActionScript Bible?

Does anyone know if it's useful or worth the money?

Its a good book and I believe its well worth the money. It covers basically everything. It has and example for pretty much everything it discusses, so it makes things easier to understand.

[mwmike]

I'll try to get it now!

[UnknownFury]

I can't recommend any specific books but I highly recommend going to a library first and boring the books. If you then feel it would be a worth while purchase go ahead. If this isn't possible, look for extracts which you can find on some book sites where you can read a few pages. This is simply so you can see if you understand it and if you like the style the book teaches in. When learning C++ I got about 5 different books and found they were all very different in how they taught you stuff. I learnt a lot more from 1 in particular.

[DawnOfDusk]

At 6/24/08 03:36 PM, UnknownFury wrote: When learning C++ I got about 5 different books and found they were all very different in how they taught you stuff. I learnt a lot more from 1 in particular.

Not trying to be a prick, but isn't learning C++ a whole hell of a lot more difficult than learning actionscript, which is why authors doing C++ their own way would make more sense?

*Psst* I'm open for flaming on this one, just curious.

[mwmike]

At 6/24/08 03:36 PM, UnknownFury wrote: I can't recommend any specific books but I highly recommend going to a library first and boring the books. If you then feel it would be a worth while purchase go ahead. If this isn't possible, look for extracts which you can find on some book sites where you can read a few pages. This is simply so you can see if you understand it and if you like the style the book teaches in. When learning C++ I got about 5 different books and found they were all very different in how they taught you stuff. I learnt a lot more from 1 in particular.

I looked at reviews, 10 out of 15 were 5 out of 5. I also looked at a short extract. I've ordered now. Amazon only sold it in dollars so I got it on ebay for £22 (instead of the market price of £30).

[Patcoola]

i learnt AS2 from java script there both based on ECMA script.

and i use the ActionScript Dictionary on the adobe website as a reference

[mwmike]

At 6/24/08 04:14 PM, Patcoola wrote: i learnt AS2 from java script there both based on ECMA script.

and i use the ActionScript Dictionary on the adobe website as a reference

I know a few things in VERY simple javascript. Never heard of EMCA script, though I realised some similarities.

[UnknownFear]

If and when I ever do take the time to actually learn ActionScript all over again, I'm probably gonna buy the Flash 8 Bible and a few books on AS 2.0 and 3.0.

[Neo-13]

Don't base my current flash skill on that tutorial - that was made after having Flash for about a month. I just never finish any projects ;D but I do intend to from now on.

I'm interested in classes and all that at the moment. So those books will be useful - I should perhaps also mention that I'm getting them for free from my work experience place. I've been making a sort of phone directory plus more in Flash to be constantly updated with XML, and during the last week I have advanced 100-fold. The books are a sort of present - lucky me I guess. :D

I'm taking a Computing A-Level next year too, so classes and arrays etc. will be useful background knowledge.

Thanks to everyone for their insight.

Btw, I coded my first class today! It's extremely simple but a step in the right direction!

[SenorLlama]

I swear by this book. It teaches you everything you need to know for basic AS3 and runs you through 5 or 6 types of game programming.

Since reading this book not only have I been able to program the 5 games he mentions, but I've also applied his methods to many other types of games and ideas. It's really a great learning guide.

And by the way, if you're learning AS and by chance you have some previous programming experience. Go for AS3.

[Coronus42]

At 6/24/08 07:11 PM, SenorLlama wrote: I swear by this book. It teaches you everything you need to know for basic AS3 and runs you through 5 or 6 types of game programming.

Since reading this book not only have I been able to program the 5 games he mentions, but I've also applied his methods to many other types of games and ideas. It's really a great learning guide.

And by the way, if you're learning AS and by chance you have some previous programming experience. Go for AS3.

Agreed. On both the book and going for AS3. If you're still set on doing AS2 I'd definitely give the AS Bible a go, I learned most of my AS from that, and I'd also take a look at Keith Peters' Actionscript animation books. I haven't read the AS3 version (been meaning to buy it fo about a month now) but the AS2 version really paid off for a project I was doing. It's called Foundation Actionscript Animation - Making Things Move!

And when you get to AS3, get Colin Moock's Essential ActionScript 3.0.

While we're on the subject, anybody know of a good AS3 Design Patterns book? I've been looking into a few of em, just want to see if anybody else has any ideas.