I have been hard at work updating the Flash Journalism website. New tutorials for ActionScript 3.0 and for working on the Timeline in CS4 and CS5 have been added.
The old pages from the original site (created to support the book I wrote about Flash journalism in 2004) are still online, and all the old links will remain operational (for ActionScript 2.0. and Flash MX 2004/Flash 8). I have built a new site on top of the old one.
There are lots of new working examples that can be downloaded and used by students or working journalists who are learning to use Flash to tell stories and to add interactivity to stories. Here are a few to get you started:
- Loading Soundslides into a Package – Flash CS4 (AS3)
- A Versatile Scrollbar for Scrolling Text in Flash CS4 (AS3)
- Flash Basics: Animation 101 in CS4 (Part 1)
- Flash CS4/CS5 and Sound Controls (AS3)
- XML Example with Flash CS4 (AS3)
The main difference I have discovered so far between CS4 and CS5 concerns the way embedded fonts are handled. This will affect any tutorial that includes a dynamic text field (for loading text from outside files), including the scrollbar file and the XML file above. What that means: When an example is labeled CS4 and includes a dynamic text field, that FLA will need extra work if it is opened with CS5. If you don’t have CS5, there’s no problem. And all the files still work perfectly online in Flash Player 9 or 10.
But if you are using CS5, and you open a CS4 tutorial that includes a dynamic text field, you need to rebuild that text field and embed the fonts in the new way. If you do that, a Flash CS4 file works fine in every respect when edited and saved in CS5. And if there are no dynamic text fields, a CS4 file works fine in CS5.