I am a slightly “old school”… meaning older :-)… graphic designer who has used Flash for about 5 years. Only in the last two years have I been creating complete Flash websites - usually fairly simple affairs that you might argue I “should” just use pure css instead… but I have always loved the way Flash works with images and I like the “experience” it gives using just very simple transitions etc. Anyway, you get the drift, I use Flash, but it’s all simple stuff.
My dilemma is that I have really just got my head around AS2 but I do understand (well vaguely) why I “need” to go to AS3. I’m just finding it so ■■■■ hard to begin despite buying books and viewing heaps of online tutorials. Everything seems so specific to one feature, and I get no concept of how it relates holistically to the way I create sites.
99% of my sites are just a base swf where the menu system loads other swfs into containers and often some external HTML text. I’ll have a container for ‘pic’, ‘text’ and ‘sidebar’ for example. It all works so well for me (except Flash not understanding CSS line height but that’s another story!) that it’s really hard (and cost prohibitive) for me to reinvent the wheel.
On one hand you could argue my current way of doing things is inefficient, but it’s still works for my clients and their audience. Do you think I really just need to modernise and break the old habits or will AS2 be supported for a long time to come? I was also wondering if I should just pay someone to recreate one of the sites I’ve done in AS3 so I can reverse engineer? An example of a simple recent site can be found here.
Any advice on how to move forward for a (non-programmer) designer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Sorry for a long, tough question for my first post!
Do you need to change to AS3? No. Would you benefit from doing so? Yes.
Basically AS2 will be around for years, and if it suits your purposes then stick with it. AS3 is a tricky transition to get around, especially getting to grips with OO programming. However from the sounds of it OOP would be really useful for you, saving lots of repeated work. The DRY mindset is helpful (Don’t Repeat Yourself) and AS3 makes that easier. OOP is possible in AS2, but it isn’t as well defined i think.
Also if you learn as3 you will discover new and exciting things you can do, which you can then use to impress your clients more.
Thanks for that - makes a lot of sense. I probably need the kick up the ar#*. One question - where’s it possible to find / purchase a well designed as3 site template that I at least can examine? They seem very hard to find! I’d love to just see how a good as3 is technically structured. Not interested in tricky stuff, just how as3 handles positioning, menu system loading events, buttons etc.
Thanks.
Hey dude,
Saw your plight and thought you might find this useful - It took me ages to learn as2, and after a few months I decided to learn as3… It’s quite an upgrade, but the basics are generally the same, just the events system which is a bit difficult to learn, but once you get your head round it - it’s so much more flexible…
Anyway - here’s a site I knocked up to go over the basics for myself, hope it helps.
If you have any more problems I’m at http://www.liamr.com if I can help.
stubbie- I’m in the same boat as you! Just as I finally grasped AS2, they go and roll out AS3. 
nortago, I’m right now downloading your example. Thank you for your generosity!
If I was a designer I would wait for CS4 since it’s the next ‘designer’ upgrade. CS3 was a ‘developer’ upgrade.
Adobe upgrades in cycles as it seems. Developer then Designer goto 1.
CS4 holds a lot of extremely valuable upgrades for designers, making the timeline usable again, with easy to update and manage methods.
Learning an OOP programming language as a designer feels very very redundant, unless you have a lot of spare time, alternatively it is something that really interests you.
Just wait till Flash 10, because the as3 updates now are more for hardcore developers.
When Flash 10 brings the 3d api,and new text layouts, then it will be advantageous for a designer to get into AS3.
