ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook By Joey Lott, Darron Schall, Keith Peters Publisher: O'Re illy Pub Date: Oct obe r , 0 ISBN: - - - Pages: Table of Contents | Index Well before Ajax and Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation hit the scene, Macromedia offered the first method for building web pages with the responsiveness and functionality of desktop programs with its Flash-based "Rich Internet Applications" Now, new owner Adobe is taking Flash and its powerful capabilities beyond the Web and making it a full-fledged development environment Rather than focus on theory, the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook concentrates on the practical application of ActionScript, with more than 300 solutions you can use to solve a wide range of common coding dilemmas You'll find recipes that show you how to: Detect the user's Flash Player version or their operating system Build custom classes Format dates and currency types Work with strings Build user interface components Work with audio and video Make remote procedure calls using Flash Remoting and web services Load, send, and search XML data And much, much more Each code recipe presents the Problem, Solution, and Discussion of how you can use it in other ways or personalize it for your own needs, and why it works You can quickly locate the recipe that most closely matches your situation and get the solution without reading the whole book to understand the underlying code Solutions progress from short recipes for small problems to more complex scripts for thornier riddles, and the discussions offer a deeper analysis for resolving similar issues in the future, along with possible design choices and ramifications You'll even learn how to link modular ActionScript pieces together to create rock-solid solutions for Flex and Flash applications When you're not sure how ActionScript 3.0 works or how to approach a specific programming dilemma, you can simply pick up the book, flip to the relevant recipe(s), and quickly find the solution you're looking for ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook By Joey Lott, Darron Schall, Keith Peters Publisher: O'Re illy Pub Date: Oct obe r , 0 ISBN: - - - Pages: Table of Contents | Index Preface Chapter ActionScript Basics Section 1.0 Introduction Recipe 1.1 Creating an ActionScript Project Recipe 1.2 Customizing the Properties of an Application Recipe 1.3 Where to Place ActionScript Code Recipe 1.4 How to Trace a Message Recipe 1.5 Handling Events Recipe 1.6 Responding to Mouse and Key Events Recipe 1.7 Using Mathematical Operators Recipe 1.8 Checking Equality or Comparing Values Recipe 1.9 Performing Actions Conditionally Recipe 1.10 Performing Complex Conditional Testing Recipe 1.11 Repeating an Operation Many Times Recipe 1.12 Repeating a Task over Time Recipe 1.13 Creating Reusable Code Recipe 1.14 Generalizing a Method to Enhance Reusability Recipe 1.15 Exiting a Method Recipe 1.16 Obtaining the Result of a Method Recipe 1.17 Handling Errors Chapter Custom Classes Section 2.0 Introduction Recipe 2.1 Creating a Custom Class Recipe 2.2 Determining Where to Save a Class Recipe 2.3 Creating Properties That Behave As Methods Recipe 2.4 Creating Static Methods and Properties Recipe 2.5 Creating Subclasses Recipe 2.6 Implementing Subclass Versions of Superclass Methods Recipe 2.7 Creating Constants Recipe 2.8 Dispatching Events Chapter Runtime Environment Section 3.0 Introduction Recipe 3.1 Detecting the Player Version Recipe 3.2 Detecting the Operating System Recipe 3.3 Checking the Player Type Recipe 3.4 Checking the System Language Recipe 3.5 Detecting Display Settings Recipe 3.6 Scaling the Movie Recipe 3.7 Changing the Alignment Recipe 3.8 Hiding the Flash Player's Menu Items Recipe 3.9 Detecting the Device's Audio Capabilities Recipe 3.10 Detecting the Device's Video Capabilities Recipe 3.11 Prompting the User to Change Player Settings Recipe 3.12 Dealing with System Security Chapter Numbers and Math Section 4.0 Introduction Recipe 4.1 Representing Numbers in Different Bases Recipe 4.2 Converting Between Different Number Systems Recipe 4.3 Rounding Numbers Recipe 4.4 Inserting Leading or Trailing Zeros or Spaces Recipe 4.5 Formatting Numbers for Display Without a Mask Recipe 4.6 Formatting Currency Amounts Recipe 4.7 Generating a Random Number Recipe 4.8 Simulating a Coin Toss Recipe 4.9 Simulating Dice Recipe 4.10 Simulating Playing Cards Recipe 4.11 Generating a Unique Number Recipe 4.12 Converting Angle Measurements Recipe 4.13 Calculating the Distance Between Two Points Recipe 4.14 Determining Points Along a Circle Recipe 4.15 Converting Between Units of Measurement Chapter Arrays Section 5.0 Introduction Recipe 5.1 Adding Elements to the Start or End of an Array Recipe 5.2 Looping Through an Array Recipe 5.3 Searching for Matching Elements in an Array Recipe 5.4 Removing Elements Recipe 5.5 Inserting Elements in the Middle of an Array Recipe 5.6 Converting a String to an Array Recipe 5.7 Converting an Array to a String Recipe 5.8 Creating a Separate Copy of an Array Recipe 5.9 Storing Complex or Multidimensional Data Recipe 5.10 Sorting or Reversing an Array Recipe 5.11 Implementing a Custom Sort Recipe 5.12 Randomizing the Elements of an Array Recipe 5.13 Getting the Minimum or Maximum Element Recipe 5.14 Comparing Arrays Recipe 5.15 Creating an Associative Array Recipe 5.16 Reading Elements of an Associative Array Chapter Display List Section 6.0 Introduction Recipe 6.1 Adding an Item to the Display List Recipe 6.2 Removing an Item from the Display List Recipe 6.3 Moving Objects Forward and Backward Recipe 6.4 Creating Custom Visual Classes Recipe 6.5 Creating Simple Buttons Recipe 6.6 Loading External Images at Runtime Recipe 6.7 Loading and Interacting with External Movies Recipe 6.8 Creating Mouse Interactions Recipe 6.9 Dragging and Dropping Objects with the Mouse Chapter Drawing and Masking Section 7.0 Introduction Recipe 7.1 Setting a Line Style Recipe 7.2 Setting Gradient Line Styles Recipe 7.3 Drawing a Line Recipe 7.4 Drawing a Curve Recipe 7.5 Drawing an Arc Recipe 7.6 Drawing a Rectangle Recipe 7.7 Drawing a Circle Recipe 7.8 Drawing an Ellipse Recipe 7.9 Drawing a Triangle Recipe 7.10 Drawing Regular Polygons Recipe 7.11 Drawing a Star Recipe 7.12 Filling a Shape with a Solid or Translucent Color Recipe 7.13 Filling a Shape with a Gradient Recipe 7.14 Filling a Shape with a Bitmap Recipe 7.15 Scripting Masks Chapter Bitmaps Section 8.0 Introduction Recipe 8.1 Creating a BitmapData Object Recipe 8.2 Adding a Bitmap to the Display List Recipe 8.3 Drawing a Display Object to a Bitmap Recipe 8.4 Loading an External Image into a Bitmap Recipe 8.5 Manipulating Pixels Recipe 8.6 Creating Rectangular Fills Recipe 8.7 Creating a Flood Fill Recipe 8.8 Copying Pixels Recipe 8.9 Copying Channels Recipe 8.10 Creating Noise Recipe 8.11 Creating Perlin Noise Recipe 8.12 Using Threshold Recipe 8.13 Applying a Filter to a Bitmap Recipe 8.14 Dissolving Between Two Bitmaps Recipe 8.15 Scrolling a Bitmap Chapter Text Section 9.0 Introduction Recipe 9.1 Creating an Outline Around a Text Field Recipe 9.2 Creating a Background for a Text Field Recipe 9.3 Making a User Input Field Recipe 9.4 Making a Password Input Field Recipe 9.5 Filtering Text Input Recipe 9.6 Setting a Field's Maximum Length Recipe 9.7 Displaying Text Recipe 9.8 Displaying HTML-Formatted Text Recipe 9.9 Condensing Whitespace Recipe 9.10 Sizing Text Fields to Fit Contents Recipe 9.11 Scrolling Text Programmatically Recipe 9.12 Responding to Scroll Events Recipe 9.13 Formatting Text Recipe 9.14 Formatting User-Input Text Recipe 9.15 Formatting a Portion of Existing Text Recipe 9.16 Setting a Text Field's Font Recipe 9.17 Embedding Fonts Recipe 9.18 Creating Text that Can Be Rotated Recipe 9.19 Displaying Unicode Text Recipe 9.20 Assigning Focus to a Text Field Recipe 9.21 Selecting Text with ActionScript Recipe 9.22 Setting the Insertion Point in a Text Field Recipe 9.23 Responding When Text Is Selected or Deselected Recipe 9.24 Responding to User Text Entry Recipe 9.25 Adding a Hyperlink to Text Recipe 9.26 Calling ActionScript from Hyperlinks Recipe 9.27 Working with Advanced Text Layout Recipe 9.28 Applying Advanced Anti-Aliasing Recipe 9.29 Replacing Text Recipe 9.30 Retrieving a List of System Fonts Chapter 10 Filters and Transforms Section 10.0 Introduction Recipe 10.1 Applying Color Changes Recipe 10.2 Applying Color Tints Recipe 10.3 Resetting Color Recipe 10.4 Shearing Recipe 10.5 Applying Basic Filters Recipe 10.6 Applying Advanced Filter Effects (Emboss, etc.) Recipe 10.7 Embossing Recipe 10.8 Detecting Edges Recipe 10.9 Sharpening Recipe 10.10 Making a Digital Negative Recipe 10.11 Applying Grayscale Recipe 10.12 Changing Saturation Recipe 10.13 Changing Brightness Recipe 10.14 Changing Contrast Chapter 11 Programmatic Animation Section 11.0 Introduction Recipe 11.1 Moving an Object Recipe 11.2 Moving an Object in a Specific Direction Recipe 11.3 Easing Recipe 11.4 Acceleration Recipe 11.5 Springs Recipe 11.6 Using Trigonometry Recipe 11.7 Applying Animation Techniques to Other Properties Chapter 12 Strings Section 12.0 Introduction Recipe 12.1 Joining Strings Recipe 12.2 Using Quotes and Apostrophes in Strings Recipe 12.3 Inserting Special Whitespace Characters Recipe 12.4 Searching for a Substring Recipe 12.5 Extracting a Substring Recipe 12.6 Parsing a String into Words Recipe 12.7 Removing and Replacing Characters and Words Recipe 12.8 Retrieving One Character at a Time Recipe 12.9 Converting Case Recipe 12.10 Trimming Whitespace Recipe 12.11 Reversing a String by Word or by Character Recipe 12.12 Converting Between Strings and Unicode or ASCII Chapter 13 Regular Expressions Section 13.0 Introduction Recipe 13.1 Understanding Regular Expression Patterns Recipe 13.2 Testing Regular Expressions Recipe 13.3 Looking for Pattern Matches Recipe 13.4 Removing and Replacing Characters and Words Using Patterns Recipe 13.5 Creating a Nongreedy Pattern Recipe 13.6 Validating User Input with Common Patterns Chapter 14 Dates and Times Section 14.0 Introduction Recipe 14.1 Finding the Current Date and Time Recipe 14.2 Retrieving the Date Values Recipe 14.3 Retrieving the Day or Month Name Recipe 14.4 Formatting the Date and Time Recipe 14.5 Formatting Seconds or Milliseconds as Minutes and Seconds Recipe 14.6 Converting Between DMYHMSM and Epoch Milliseconds Recipe 14.7 Using Timers Recipe 14.8 Calculating Elapsed Time or Intervals Between Dates Recipe 14.9 Parsing a Date from a String Chapter 15 Programming Sound Section 15.0 Introduction Recipe 15.1 Creating a Sound Object and Loading a Sound Recipe 15.2 Starting and Stopping a Sound Recipe 15.3 Setting the Buffer for a Sound Recipe 15.4 Offsetting the Start of a Sound Recipe 15.5 Playing a Sound Multiple Times (Looping) Recipe 15.6 Getting the Size of a Sound File Recipe 15.7 Reading the ID3 Tag of a Sound File Recipe 15.8 Find Out When a Sound Finishes Playing Recipe 15.9 Tracking the Progress of a Playing Sound Recipe 15.10 Pausing and Restarting a Sound Recipe 15.11 Reading the Level of a Sound Recipe 15.12 Stopping All Sounds Recipe 15.13 Reading the Sound Spectrum Recipe 15.14 Changing the Volume or Pan of a Sound Recipe 15.15 Creating a Sound Application Chapter 16 Video Section 16.0 Introduction Recipe 16.1 Loading and Playing Back Video Recipe 16.2 Controlling Video Sound Recipe 16.3 Reading Playback Time Recipe 16.4 Reading Video Duration Recipe 16.5 Controlling Playback Time Recipe 16.6 Scaling Video Recipe 16.7 Managing and Monitoring Buffering and Loading Recipe 16.8 Listening for Cue Points Recipe 16.9 Applying Filters to Video Recipe 16.10 Pausing and Resuming Video Recipe 16.11 Stopping Video Recipe 16.12 Scrubbing Video Recipe 16.13 Clearing the Video Display Recipe 16.14 Determining User Bandwidth Chapter 17 Storing Persistent Data Section 17.0 Introduction Recipe 17.1 Creating and Opening a Local Shared Object Recipe 17.2 Writing Data to a Shared Object Recipe 17.3 Saving a Local Shared Object Recipe 17.4 Reading Data from a Shared Object Recipe 17.5 Removing Data from a Shared Object Recipe 17.6 Serializing Custom Classes Recipe 17.7 Sharing Data Between Flash Applications Recipe 17.8 Controlling the Size of Local Shared Objects Chapter 18 Communicating with Other Movies Section 18.0 Introduction Recipe 18.1 Creating Local Connections Recipe 18.2 Sending Data Recipe 18.3 Validating Receipt of Communication over Local Connections Recipe 18.4 Accepting Local Communications from Other Domains Chapter 19 Sending and Loading Data Section 19.0 Introduction Recipe 19.1 Loading Variables from a Text File Recipe 19.2 Loading Variables from a Server-Side Script Recipe 19.3 Loading a Block of Text (Including HTML and XML) Recipe 19.4 Checking Load Progress Recipe 19.5 Accessing Data Being Downloaded Recipe 19.6 Sending Data to a Server-Side Script Recipe 19.7 Sending Variables and Handling a Returned Result Chapter 20 XML Section 20.0 Introduction Recipe 20.1 Understanding XML Structure (Reading and Writing XML) Recipe 20.2 Creating an XML Object Recipe 20.3 Adding Elements to an XML Object Recipe 20.4 Adding Text Nodes to an XML Object Recipe 20.5 Adding Attributes to an XML Element Recipe 20.6 Reading Elements in an XML Tree Recipe 20.7 Finding Elements by Name Recipe 20.8 Reading Text Nodes and Their Values Recipe 20.9 Reading an Element's Attributes Recipe 20.10 Removing Elements, Text Nodes, and Attributes Recipe 20.11 Loading XML Recipe 20.12 Loading XML from Different Domains Recipe 20.13 Sending XML Recipe 20.14 Searching XML Recipe 20.15 Using HTML and Special Characters in XML Chapter 21 Web Services and Flash Remoting Section 21.0 Introduction Recipe 21.1 Calling Web Services Methods Recipe 21.2 Handling Web Services Responses Recipe 21.3 Handling Web Services Errors Recipe 21.4 Calling Flash Remoting Methods Recipe 21.5 Handling Flash Remoting Responses Chapter 22 Building Integrated Applications Section 22.0 Introduction Recipe 22.1 Calling JavaScript Functions Recipe 22.2 Calling ActionScript Functions Recipe 22.3 Passing Parameters from HTML Chapter 23 File Management Section 23.0 Introduction Recipe 23.1 Downloading Files Recipe 23.2 Detecting When a User Selects a File to Upload Recipe 23.3 Monitoring Download Progress Recipe 23.4 Browsing for Files Recipe 23.5 Filtering Files That Display in the Browser Window Recipe 23.6 Detecting When the User Has Selected a File to Upload Recipe 23.7 Uploading Files Recipe 23.8 Monitoring File Upload Progress Chapter 24 Socket Programming Section 24.0 Introduction Recipe 24.1 Connecting to a Socket Server Recipe 24.2 Sending Data Recipe 24.3 Receiving Data Recipe 24.4 Handshaking with a Socket Server Recipe 24.5 Disconnecting from a Socket Server Recipe 24.6 Handling Socket Errors Appendix A Unicode Escape Sequences for Latin Characters Index Preface The Act ionScript 3.0 Cookbook is written with all levels of ActionScript developers in mindpeople like you who want practical solutions to common problems Keep this book next to your computer to tackle programming challenges It is filled with exciting yet accessible and practical examples, solutions, and insights into the situations that Flash and ActionScript developers are sure to encounter The book is in the style of the classic O'Reilly Cookbook series format, in which each recipe presents the problem, the solution, and a discussion of the solution You can quickly locate the recipe that most closely matches your situation and get the solution without having to read the whole book to understand the underlying code The Discussion sections of each recipe offer a deeper analysis of how the solution works and possible design choices and ramifications So you get the best of both worldsquick and easy access to the answers you want and deeper insights into the nature of both the problem and the solution The Act ionScript 3.0 Cookbook helps you develop your understanding of concepts by applying them in real situations What's Not in This Book This book contains a lot of information on a wide range of topics It covers the gamut of clientside ActionScript Every recipe is presented in the context of an applied solution or example Although the book discusses some minimal theory, it is not intended as an introduction to any of these subjects There are many good books, references, and documents that discuss ActionScript in a comprehensive fashion The Act ionScript 3.0 Cookbook is not designed to be that sort of book It is intentionally designed in a particular format to help you with solutions to specific problems Compatibility As the title of the book says, this is the Act ionScript 3.0 Cookbook As such, all of the code examples in this book are based on ActionScript 3.0 and only compatible work with products that support ActionScript 3.0 Flex 2.0 and Flash allow you to author ActionScript 3.0 content Flash Player supports ActionScript 3.0 If you are using a product that does not support ActionScript 3.0, then the code in this book is not likely to work Flash Platform Naming Conventions ActionScript 3.0 is an important part of the Flash Platform The Flash Platform is inclusive of many related technologies centering on the Flash Player There are so many Flash Platform technologies these days that it can be difficult to keep track of all of them To further complicate matters, many of the terminology are used very informally, generically, and even incorrectly by many developers Although we don't take a harsh view of such informal use of terminology, we want to be as clear and precise as possible when discussing these technologies throughout this book; therefore, we use terminology in very specific ways Table P-1 lists the terms we use ... the Act ionScript 3.0 Cookbook As such, all of the code examples in this book are based on ActionScript 3.0 and only compatible work with products that support ActionScript 3.0 Flex 2.0 and Flash... 2.0 and Flash allow you to author ActionScript 3.0 content Flash Player supports ActionScript 3.0 If you are using a product that does not support ActionScript 3.0, then the code in this book is... ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook By Joey Lott, Darron Schall, Keith Peters Publisher: O'Re illy Pub Date: Oct obe r , 0 ISBN: - - - Pages: Table of Contents | Index Preface Chapter ActionScript