Learning Flash

Before enrolled in this module, I was a complete novice for Flash. After this module, I can definitely say that I have learnt some basic skills of using Flash, and am able to prepare simple interactivity using buttons, sliders and hotspots.

At the early stage of planning the group assignment, I held an idea of using (advanced) actionscripts to finish the group project. It was because I found some books about actionscripts in Flash in public library and thought that I could finish the group project without difficulty if I knew how to write actionscripts. But later I found it difficult to learn the required actionscripts in a shorter period of time.

By looking at Daniel's demonstration of moving a pointer using a slider and the tutorial video part 4 about the changing colours of clothes, I changed my mind completely. I started to explore if I could finish the project with simple techniques that I have already learnt in this module. In the former case, I learnt how to include 360 keyframes for the pointer and I could finally easily move the pointer through one revolution with the help of a slider. In the latter case, I learnt how to use the 'tellTarget' action to show the desired reduced bearing. Therefore, I found that 'keeping something simple and smart' could give me some ideas of finding solutions.

With some hands-on experience of using Flash, I know more about the concept of 'layers'. For example, in my trial version on using a slider to drag the pointer to move along a circular path, initially I put the textbox inside the slider layer so that the textbox moved as long the slider moved. The problem was finally fixed as I moved the textbox to an appropriate layer. I really enjoy learning and using Flash now.