Making Progress Learning Flash

I made excellent progress in learning Flash over the July 4th weekend. I added ten pages to my notes on Flash and ActionScript. I used to know a little about Flash back when I worked for Kolb Net Works but I only had four pages of notes from back then. We had professional web designers who did most of the Flash work so I only did a little ActionScript.

I’m currently reading “Macromedia Flash MX ActionScript For Dummies” by Doug Sahlin but I’ve ordered three more current books.

Last night I finally learned how to import video into Flash, a topic not covered in my books, and saw the various video skins you can choose from. I positioned a transparent PNG file over the video as a logo. The advantage in doing it that way is you can swap out the video and still have the logo appear over the video without editing the actual video footage.

One thing that always gave me problems with Flash was trying to edit a movie clip. Sometimes I would edit the symbol instead because it is hard to tell exactly what you are editing. I think I’m getting the hang of that now. The layers and frames in the timeline is also starting to make more sense to me. My ActionScript book does not really cover the design aspects of the program but I’m still picking up enough information on that.

I can use Flash in my Notes help collection. Since my SWF files are fairly small right now I can include actual examples of working movies in my notes. I’ve always had a few simple Flash movies in my notes like a typography Flash file that highlights part of the font as you move your mouse over font terminology.