Re: FLASH: Flash 5 & JavaScript

[John Dowdell]

At 11:40 AM 7/25/0, Rob Adams wrote:

> That's not how I read the Flash 5 news release at all.  They

> said that actionscript now follows the _syntax and structure_

> of Javascript, seemingly in an attempt to make Flash scripting

> immediately intuitive and accessible for folks who know JS.

> I don't think Flash 5 relies on JavaScript whatsoever.


That's true. Although the Dreamweaver and Fireworks authoring tools have a

licensed JavaScript interpreter within them (to read History items as

Commands, for instance), the tiny Flash Player has a small ActionScript

engine within it. This follows the style of JavaScript as much as possible,

but is not an actual licensed JavaScript interpreter.


(A different path might be to call out to the browser's licensed JavaScript

interpreter, but you already know how these differ among browsers, and we'd

be hosed when going to a non-desktop device like a handheld. The tiny

ActionScript engine is optimized for size, and many functions were added in

this Flash 5 release.)


The goal in the shop was to let you leverage your existing JavaScript

knowledge, so the methods and appearance are as similar as possible. The

interpreter for these commands is a bit different, in order to fit inside

the small Macromedia Flash Player.


Summary: ActionScript syntax is similar to JavaScript syntax, but the

interactivity in the SWF bytecode is processed by the ActionScript engine

inside the Macromedia Flash 5 Player.


jd






John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US

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