Talk:ActionScript

What's up with the "commenting code" and other similar sections? Is this a "how to program" guide or just information about actionscript? I already know how to program, thanks - just needed some quick info about which language family actionscript belonged to, and so on.

Totally agree - the "Coding style" section needs to go.

I agree. Further, AS1 and AS2 are substantially different. The page in its current form has mixed paraphs describing each, but a newcomer (presumably target audience) has no way of distingu doom!ishing. We should perhaps re-organise using such as the "Java programming language" (1st half) as better organisational structure and tone? we could then break out to sub-pages covering the differing 'best-practices' and or language characteristics of both versions?

I agree too. I removed it. Also, I wonder (this wasnt answered on the main page): what minimum version of Flash supports ActionScript 2?

That's a trick question of sorts. Flash MX 2004 is the first authoring environent to support AS2. However, AS1 is Flash MX is very similar; the only notable difference I've seen is that it does not have a formal class declaration syntax. Instead, you have to declare a class as a function object and then put whatever you want available to subclasses in classname.prototype. Flash Player 7 :) will run AS with AS2-style class declarations. However, MX 2004 can export SWF's compatable with older versions of the player, regardless of the actionscript used. However, I've read that these "backported" SWF's are very slow. -- anon

- Flash MX2004 was the first version to support AS2.

- The big difference of AS2 is the type checking at compile time.

- AS2 can be compiled as AS1 prototype code (with some very subtle issues in classes inheritance).

PS: this article needs serious clean-up - especially the samples & external links section!

If I remember rightly, no version of the flash player actually supports AS2.0 - it compiles down to AS1.0 code when you build the movie. As such, you can use AS2.0 to generate movies compatible with flash player 6. The AS2.0 code is mainly used to give better errors when compiling and to allow programmers more intuitive ways of creating classes than AS1.0
ActionScript 3.0 is (I think) the first new language supported by the player (9+) since AS1.0: they built a completely new flash player into 9 alongside one to handle the older code.

Clean-up

I think that this article deserves a clean-up. It does not talk much about its syntax nor its history. It has three poorly written examples mixing AS 2.0 and AS 1.0, and the article itself is just completely stretched in width. Also it does not use proper wiki formatting (it just looks messy, really) If I get one or two votes I'll get onto cleaning it up, although I don't know much about the history of ActionScript itself. --TrashLock 17:02, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Note:Many AS programmers mix the two versions, it makes things a lot easier. Yeah, there should be some examples of stuff such as OOP and that, but I think the examples are good as they are--72.49.52.246

[02/24/06] I agree with the first poster that the code in the current examples is very poor (in particular, the Array example with prototyping). I would recommend updating the example to current best practices, removing prototyping and removing the bad reference to _root.

(26/3/06) Myself and a couple of others edited the page a couple of months ago, and removed a lot of the crap that people had put (obviously they didn't understand AS well enough to teach people how to use it). It still needs a big redo though.

(28/01/07) I agree also, I think Flash Lite 1.0/1.1/2.0 lite, should be moved down the list, because it didnt appear, until much later, like example, Flash Lite 1, was an export option, which first appeared in Flash 6 MX, the criticism section, is just hear-say, I dont see much point for it, I thought Microsoft bought Futureshock from Macromedia, and Macromedia, went onto create Flash?

Did Actionscript(Advanced Actionscript), first appeared in Flash 4, cause I used Flash 4, and it did have Actionscript, I cannot remember the syntax, the only real big change, I can remember, from Flash 4, to Flash 5, was some windows, and added, an extra pointer, for changing the shape of objects.

Profanity

IS okay in this context. Wikipedia is not censored from minors, and many Flash apps use this kind of code. So shut up--72.49.52.246

Yes, Wikipedia is not censored from minors and yes some people do like to see this kind of code. However, this is a community project with high visibility a some common sense wouldn't hurt. I'm reverting your changes to indicate that I too support a more neutral wording, not as a personal affront. Best Jbetak 18:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

But we need something that is common,AND conforms to common sense. Until then, I reverted your edits--72.49.52.246

How about this:

A smple check for large American cities entered in a textbox with an instance name of "imput"

cities = new Array(New York,San Francisco,Los Angeles/*sp?*/,Las Vegas,Chicago); //Note:Arrays NEVER use quotes
var american:Boolean = false
for(x in cities) {
     if(imput.text == cities[x]){//X refers to an item in an array, 0 is fuck, 1 is bitch, etc.
            american; //same as goodBoy = false
            trace("'"+ cities[x]+"' is a noted American city,Look on Wikipedia for info on it")
     }
}
!american ? trace("Where is that?"); :null //Same as if(goodBoy){trace("[[ditto]]")}//From an earlier edit

That looks great! Would you mind putting it in the article when it's ready? Cheers Jbetak 19:24, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Who the f*ck says arrays never use quotes? What kind of coding habit is that? I think the people writing this article don't know enough about ActionScript enough to write it. --TrashLock 21:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The examples up now are fine.--72.49.52.246

Was the example in this talk paragraph ever in the article? That's the worst, most ugly-written and immature nonsense I've ever read. And of course you need quotes to indicate that the entries in the array are strings. —Michiel Sikma,

One word. Nonsense. rofl I have never seen such a code in my life =D And yes, variables do use quotes to indicate a string. --seifip 21:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article suffers from too many cooks in the kitchen.

Is this article a tutorial? A history of development? A technical description of the language? A technical summary of the language? A non-technical summary of the language? The article tries to be all of these, and fails.

"Features of the Flash ActionScript implementation that JavaScript programmers may find interesting:[citation needed]" Why is a citation needed? Does the citation need to provide support for "JavaScript programmers may find interesting" (author can cite himself), for the points that follow (cite the online ActionScript reference manuals), or both?

"ActionScript code is frequently written directly in the Flash authoring environment, which offers reference, code hints and syntax highlighting.[citation needed]" Cite the frickin' manuals! Or cite the product! The information can be gathered by reading the manuals or actually using Flash Studio.

In the Criticism section: "This article or section does not cite its references or sources." How should one go about citing the umpteen billion news group posts griping about ActionScript?

I suggest that someone rewrite the entire article. Start by determining exactly what the article should and should not cover. Then write the content. Don't place "citation needed" tags on statements that are easily verifiable by reading the manuals or actually using the product. Eliminate "some say" type crap. Replace with actual examples of problems, so nobody can demand that there be a citation of the umpteen billion news group posts.

Or, just say this:

ActionScript is a programming language for scripting Adobe Flash movies.

68.144.78.176 06:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC) He is right. This article is a piece of junk. The problem is that actionscrpit is so easy to use that everyone assumes that they are experts on it.[reply]

I did brief editing to this article before and agree that it really just needs a remake. It's too littered to be easily "fixed". —msikma <user_talk:msikma> 12:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, the "citation needed" is there because the statements are flawed. They are unencyclopedic. If there are "things that some programmers find interesting", then there should be a reputable source that makes this statement. And even if the manual is the source to some of these statements, then the manual should be added as source to that particular statement. It's got to do with Wikipedia:Verifiability. —msikma <user_talk:msikma> 12:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rewrite; what should this article be about?

Overview: Discuss the type of language ActionScript is,
History: The history of the language, but no extensive difference examples of AS 1.0, 2.0, 3.0.
Syntax: Discuss the syntax, show "hello world" example. Discuss differences AS 1.0, 2.0, 3.0.
Criticism
Related languages
References
Footnotes
See also
Further reading

This is my first draft of what the rewrite of this article should be about. Embrace and extend it. —msikma <user_talk:msikma> 13:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now Open Source

Hi

Just want to bring to the attention of the authors of this article that the Adobe ActionScript VM source has been release under a open source license together with Mozilla. [1]

Gary van der Merwe ^(Talk) 15:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scripting Language?

Is ActionScript 2.0/3.0 still considered a Scripting Language rather than a Programming Language?! Just because it has the word Script in its name doesn't mean anything (anymore)! I think people should reconsider this! Java also is not a Scripting Language! --sys2074 18:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scripting languages are of course just a special kind of programming language. The term applies to ActionScript because it was originally designed to enable programmatic control within a specific domain (Flash animations), not to write stand-alone programs. Numberp 02:26, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]