FLASH

I don't know everything about it, but I know for sure that you will not know how to use the program thoroughly in two weeks. Unless you're some kind of super wiz kid. Even then, I don't see it happening. It's a tough program to learn if you've never used it. Mostly it's used for web animations, but I'm sure there are other applications for it that are useful too, like creating more dynamic presentations than possible with that horrible Powerpoint bullshit. Do you know any programming languages? I think Javascript is the language used for coding in Flash, and to be really good with the program, you should learn at least the basics of the scripting language.

thats bad news.

i am no wiz and all i know is little bits of BASIC and C.

how about a month then?

It's hard to say. I guess it depends how good you need to be. Simple stuff, maybe you could get enough knowledge to do in a month. Working on very simple already-existing Flash files, I think you could probably do. I'm no expert though. Maybe somebody else around here will be able to help you out.

This is a good beginners book: Flash 8: Training from the Source

thanks very much.

any more advice and help anyone?

I teach a beginners Flash class and would recommend learning how to work with shapes, timelines, and tweening. Flash is a very large program and can be very very frustrating. If you have any soecific questions I could try to answer them for you... otherwise, I'd just sit down with a tutorial book and start going at it. Make sure you do all of them even if they seem real basic because it will help you down the line.

Once you get the basics taken care of you can start tackling actionscripting. The thing about Flash is you can do just about anything you want... you just need to figure out the best way to do it.

There are a ton of mini Flash Tutorial sites out there too. I like this one: http://www.flashtutorials.us/ but there are a ton out there. They aren't a good comprehensive source though becouse they are a bunch of mini tuorials that usually target one specific thing as opposed to a broad overview of the whole program. Once you are familiar with the program they are a good resource though.

can you answer the following questions of mine -


#is there any part of FLASH thats used more often in office work ??

#which are the concepts in FLASH which are the difficult bottlenecks??

#what sort of programs (ex - write a flash prog to simulate a video game like RoadFighter) are software engineers required to write in FLASH?



i am basically looking for short cuts. want to concentrate on stuff the job will actually want me to do. want to give stress to the more difficult concepts and skim through the easier ones.

is it a good idea to learn from going through standard programs and see how programmers do stuff in flash. like, you said everythig can be done in flash and often in more than one way. the trick is to find out the easiest way. so i want to go through programs in those internet tutorials and see what those "Easiest" ways are, of doing certain standard things (like simulating a "Wave"). i could learn the easiest way quicker if i followed the short cuts the experts take, instead of trying a trial-and-error method.

Not really.



Planning your project setup/layout and actionscripting.



Actionscripting is the built in "language" Flash uses. This is the hardest broadest and most powerful attribute of flash.




There really aren't that many shortcuts in Flash. You really needto learn the basics in order to learn the advanced stuff. Sit down and go through the book. Then go get an actionscripting book and go through that. It is a hard program to learn and is going to take a little work in order to get it done.

thanks very much. that was a great help.

i haev been learning the basics - but still feel a bit rudderless.

can someone pls answer the following question (repeated from post 1) -


what sort of programs (ex - write a flash prog to simulate a video game like RoadFighter) are software engineers required to write in FLASH?