Chapter 4. Understanding and Using Objects

Every day you use objects to perform any number of activities. You may have used Tupperware to store fresh cookies to prevent them from becoming stale, or the trashcan to store a fruitcake from your Aunt Sally. Objects are items designed to meet specific needs. You can use them to perform tasks of their own (for example, a VCR playing or recording a movie), or you can employ them as simple storage devices, like Tupperware.

Objects in Macromedia Flash are similar to real-world objects. Each of the many types of Flash objects meets specific needs in your Flash applications. In this chapter, we'll introduce you to Flash's objects and help you gain experience using them.

This Flash word processor is one of the projects you'll create in this lesson.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

In this lesson, you will:

• Learn what objects are and why they are useful

• Get acquainted with the various objects available in ActionScript

• Use the Color object

• Create an interactive scene using the Key object

• Create a word processor using properties and methods of the String and Selection objects

APPROXIMATE TIME:

This lesson takes approximately 45 minutes to complete.

LESSON FILES:

Media Files:

None

Starting Files:

Lesson04/Clown1.fla

Lesson04/balloon1.fla

Lesson04/wordProcessor1.fla

Completed Projects:

Clown2.fla

balloon2.fla

wordProcessor2.fla