Class #2

Class #2 - Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

BUTTONS and MouseEvents: alpha property and buttons as listeners for the MouseEvent.CLICK MouseEvent example. You have this as a handout, and we did part of this in the computer lab.
On your handout for today, you will see that there were THREE different layers. The bottom layer was named Rectangle layer, the middle layer was named Button layer, and the top layer was named Actions. In the lab hands-on class, we named the bottom layer Content instead of Rectangle layer. Otherwise, we created the very same 3 layers.
Chapter 3 of BGP book: You received a handout of the Adventure Game - Treasure Hunt. Please read chapter 3 of the BGP (Beginning Game Programming in Flash book. We will talk about it later this week.
1. Events and Event Handlers are discussed on pages 48 and 49 of BGP. We covered the MouseEvent.CLICK event today in class and in lab. The event handlers were named showHideRectangle, moveLeft and moveRight. See the above link and see your handout.
2. Read on page 49 about another way to create a Movie Clip for Flash. Insert menu, New Symbol command is another way. We will be sure to use that way in class on Wednesday to help you learn more about Symbol creation. We have been making the Shape first and then selecting it and then using F8 to Convert the Selected Shape to Symbol, right?
3. We will use the trace() function on Wednesday in class and lab. It is explained on page 17 of your BGP book.
4. Read about Function on page 45 and Built-In functions on pages 46-48 of chapter 3 of BGP.

VIP: Journal Entry #1 is due tommorrow. (Due on Wednesday).

How long should your journal entry be?

     Hand-written it should be one sheet of paper covered front and back 
with rewritten notes, questions, diagrams, confusions, review of the 
Flash games class experience so far.  It can be more than one sheet.

     If you word-process it, it can be one or two pages of material.
You can use WordArt, for example, to illustrate a concept visually too.

What should be in your journal entry?

      1. Review of the lecture notes and handouts.

      2. Review of the web site lecture followup and of the example
         games and Flash applications shown in class.

      3. Discussion of the things that most confuse you or challenge you
         so far about Flash.

      4. Discussion of things that you understand but that you had 
         trouble with at first or that you know others might struggle 
         with at first.
 
         Trying to make a concept clear by explaining it in writing is
         one of the best ways to develop a deeper understanding of it
         for yourself.

      5. Talking about the things that were most interesting or exciting
         so far.

      6. Using the book and/or the web page and/or the handouts and/or 
         google searches to find more information about a concept in
         Flash or in ActionScript 3.0 that we have covered.
 
         Elaborating and adding to that concept or skill with what you
         read or found elsewhere.  This is an excellent way to learn.

      7. Reading the day #1 review and responding to the ideas and terms
         and Flash application examples presented there.

         http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/games/class1.html