Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0

[johan]

Object-Oriented ActionScript 3.0 is the follow-up to Object-Oriented ActionScript for Flash 8, written by Peter Elst, Sas Jacobs and Todd Yard, published by Friends Of Ed.

This release pretty much contains the same content as the last title. The only difference is the focus on teaching the reader how to programme using ActionScript 3.0, with the addition of a new introductory chapter on how to work with Flex 2.
This book focus mainly on demystifying all the hardcore OOP principles and concepts such as inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism and design patterns.

As with most Friends of Ed titles, the book is written in a very approachable tone, suitable especially to Flash designers and developers.

After a few theoretical introductory chapters on project planning and best practices with many tips and suggestions on how to write clean and maintainable code, the book then continues on to more advanced OOP principles. These are explained thoroughly through various example codes, which the user can follow either in the Flash IDE or in an editor of their choice.

After building a solid OOP foundation, the authors then shift gears and focus on demonstrating these news concepts in a couple of very practical and hands-on case studies and Advanced topics. The case study include building an OOP Media Player and how to develop a slide show engine and the more generic advanced topics include Building and extending dynamic frameworks; step-by-step processes in building UI widgets from the ground up; OOP animation and effects; exchanging data between components; communication between Flash and the browser and server communication (XML and web services).

Overall, this book alone provides everything you need to help you delve into the world of OOP and start building and designing reusable and extensible component frameworks, animation and effects with confidence.