Re: FLASH: A teacher wonders why ActionScript tutorials "bite"

[pebbles]

Hi Everybody,


I love this thread! Mostly becauseI just tried to give myself a crash course

in building a submission form in Flash with text boxes and radio buttons. It

wasn't pretty!


I'm a designer with 5+ yrs of basic html experience and I'm not a technical

genius (variables? tell target? huh?), but I get by. I thought a Flash form

would be similar to an html form, so I hit the on-line tutorials and

searched my e-mail archives for any advice I could find. But, many of the

finer points of Action Script were completely lost on me and I wound up

feeling like I was hitting my head on a brick wall! Ouch!


A few people resonded to my pleas for advice (thanks Erik and Daniel!) but

my form still would not submit my radio box data and I could not find an

answer on-line or in the books I had. Very frustrating! I even went to my

favorite bookstore to see if I could find a book on Lingo or anything

remotely close to Action Script. (or a programmer who could come over and

fix my script!) I did wind up buying two more Flash books and hoped for a

miracle or a visit from the Action Script fairy.


Anyway, it's too late to make this long story short, but I did somehow find

the answer I was looking for in "Flash 4, Creative Web Animation" by Derek

Franklin and Brooks Patton. The interactivity chapter was really helpful. It

did not directly answer my specific question, but it explained "set

varables" and "tell target" in a way that I could understand and I

discovered my form wasn't working because my radio button was a child movie

clip and I needed to tell the parent movie clip to set the variable.

Probably very logical and simple stuff for a programmer, but the on-line

tutorial I used to create the radio buttons did not spell this out for me.

Also, all the Macromedia Action Script help files were so "techy", they

scared the hell out of me. But for some reason, this book was much more

user-friendly and not at all over my head.


I think "Flash 4 Magic" could be helpful also, but I would really recommend

anyone who needs  Action Script help to check out the "Creative Web

Animation" book.  It helped me with my self-taught crash-course in creating

form that actually works and I think it will be a good reference as well. If

they can get through to me, that's a pretty big accomplishment!


Anyway, that's my 2 cents and my commercial for a book that totally saved my

ass!


cheers!

sharon







flasher is generously supported by...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Streaming Media WEST '99 Conference & Exhibition

  "The Worlds largest Internet Audio & Video Event"

 December 7 - 9, San Jose Convention Center, California


Reserve your space today at http://www.streamingmedia.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  To unsubscribe or change your list settings go to

http://www.chinwag.com/flasher or email

helpchinwag [dot] com