Editor’s review:

Very short Flash tutorial that shows how to have the systems date and time display in Flash. Not the easiest Flash tutorial to follow, and it’s definitely lacking on explanation, but if you are looking to have the date and time display in your Flash projects, this is a great way to do it.

Note: if you are using copy/paste, all the quotes use smartquotes (can be aggravating for beginners), so you will need to swap in regular quotes. Also, there is a typo where it reads month[datedispay.getMonth()]. It is missing an “l” in display, should read: month[datedisplay.getMonth()].

View Tutorial: Flash Tutorial: Adding time/date stamp in Flash

Additional Info
Version: All
ActionScript: 2.0
Online example: No
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s review:

A lot of people use Flash’s hitTest() method for setting up collisions between 2 symbols, which is great, except when using on circles, hit test takes the outer dimensions of the entire symbol (a square), so it’s not an exact collision. This short Flash tutorial describes how to set up collisions of 2 circles where the collision is the curve lines of the circles rather than the symbol area. Pretty neat!

Also, nice explanation of the code accompanied by a short trigonometry lesson. But don’t worry, you don’t need to know trigonometry to complete this tutorial, it just helps explain what the code is doing.

ActionScript 2.0 and ActionScript 3.0 code is provided, although I couldn’t get the ActionScript 3.0 code to work correctly. Also, be careful when doing a copy/paste, as the AS2.0 code uses the HTML code for the less than symbol (“&lt;” vs “<”) on line 10. User will need to swap in the less than symbol if doing a copy and paste. Otherwise, the AS 2.0 code worked great!

View Tutorial: Flash Tutorial: Circle Collisons

Additional Info
Version: All
ActionScript: 2.0 and 3.0 code provided (note: editor could not get 3.0 code to work properly)
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s Review:

Another very simple to follow tutorial from www.flashessential.com on how to draw curved lines using only Flash ActionScript 3.0 code. Sort of a “Part 2″ to their tutorial on Drawing Lines With AS3, this is another great starter tutorial for individuals looking to start to learn Flash AS3. Very clear, and nice descriptions to explain each line of code. Simple lines of code, and you can change the colors/coordinates to do your own experimenting.

Note: If you copy and paste the code from the page, you will need to keystrok the “x” in line 3 where it says “0×333333″. The “x” in the example code does not translate correctly into the Flash Actions panel. Took me a couple minutes to figure it out, but once I changed that, it worked great.

View Tutorial: AS3 Guide Drawing Curves

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: Flash CS3 and up
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s Review:

Pretty simple to follow tutorial on how to draw lines using only Flaxh ActionScript 3.0 code. Great starter tutorial for individuals looking to start to learn Flash AS3. Very clear, and nice descriptions (and illustrations) to explain each line of code. Simple lines of code, and you can change the colors/coordinates to do your own experimenting.

Note: If you copy and paste the code from the page, you will need to keystrok the “x” in line 3 where it says “0×333333″. The “x” in the example code does not translate correctly into the Flash Actions panel. Took me a couple minutes to figure it out, but once I changed that, it worked great.

View Tutorial: AS3 Guide Drawing Lines

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: Flash CS3 and up
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s Review:

This tutorial has not yet been reviewed. Please feel free to add your own review in the comments below.

Authors quote:

This flash tutorial will teach you how to limit the keyboard movements of an object on the stage. This means you can use the keyboard controls to move your movie clip instance on the stage, but you will not be able to go over edge of the stage.

View Tutorial: Limit movements on the stage

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: Flash 5 and up
ActionScript: 2.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

Editor’s Review:

Short, easy tutorial to show how to move a movie clip with the mouse in Flash. Also talks briefly about the how to detect when a clip touches another clip using the hitTest() method in Flash. While this tutorial isn’t meant to show you how to create or draw the clips used for the example, the way it explains how to set up the clips is a little confusing. However, if you know enough about Flash to draw and create symbols, then this is an easy tutorial to show you how to add a little interactivity to your Flash projects. One important note about hitTest (aka collision detection). The “hit” area is the bounding box of your symbol. So, in the case of this tutorial, the hitTest applies even when VISUALLY the objects are not touching (since the tutorial uses circular shapes as it’s symbols). While the tutorial is still relevant, and is still a good lesson on hitTest, I think its important to point that out to avoid users thinking they might have made a mistake

View Tutorial: Interactivity in Flash using hitTest() method

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: 5 and up
ActionScript: 2.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

View Tutorial: Mouse Dragging

Editor’s Review:

Very short, easy to follow Flash tutorial to create a neat little animation of circles that follow the users mouse as it moves around the Flash stage. Well written with commented code so it’s easy to follow along.

One note is the first step says:

First create two Movie Clip; one is for the smaller circle you can see above and the other for the rest of the circles.

Not sure why you need 2 movie clips… I just used one and changed the size of each one on the stage using the Transform Pallette. Either way, it’s still a short tutorial with a nice effect and leaves a lot of room for user experimentation to create more advanced mouse-trail effects.

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: 5 and up
ActionScript: 2.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: Yes
Video Tutorial: No

View Tutorial: Black Shine Animation

Editor’s Review:

Nicely written, well described instruction on how to create a simple shimmer effect to an image. Not really the most exceptional Flash effect, but it’s definitely worth checking out. Personally, I wouldn’t use this type of sparkle effect on an photograph, but it might work well on an illustration or cartoon where a “shine” or “sparkle” effect might be needed (the reason being, it looks illustrated and not natural). So, if you had say a cartoon with woman wearing a diamond ring, this effect might help it shine… if it were a photograph of a diamond ring, this effect might not work as well. That said, it’s a great tutorial for beginners to get into Flash animation without ActionScript.

A couple quick notes… On Step 9 in the tutorial:

Step 9

Go back on the first frame and repeat the previouse step.

You actually want to go to the first frame and repeat the TWO previous steps (steps 7 AND 8).

Also, the steps for creating the “shape_mc” can get a little confusing and there are few images that the author refers to that are missing. My advice is to read each step carefully and don’t try to rush. The instructions are there, you just need to follow them. Once you get through it once, you’ll see it’s really not that complicated.

A lengthy tutorial for a simple effect, but definitely worth the read.

Additional Info
Level: Intermediate
Version: 5 and up
ActionScript: N/A
Online example: Yes
Source files available: Yes
Video Tutorial: No

View Tutorial: Flash ActionScript 3.0 Fountain (particle effect) tutorial

Editor’s Review:

Very short tutorial with some nicely commented code that shows you how to do a colorful particle effect. While this tutorial simply creates a set of colorful circles bouncing up from the bottom of the stage, if you dissect the code a little and experiment a little bit you can probably find some great uses for this type of effect (personally, I’m thinking “sparkler”… I’ll have to play around a little bit when I have the time).

Bottom line, nice effect using a short amount of ActionScript 3.0 code (it only looks like a lot of code since it’s well commented).

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: CS3
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No

View Tutorial: Bouncing text flash animation

Editor’s Review:

Very short Flash tutorial that shows how to create a nice little bouncing text animation. Nicely commented code, and very easy to follow. However, there is one step that the writer didn’t mention that might cause problems for beginners. After you break apart the text, you need to click on each separate letter and convert it to a movie clip symbol (Modify > Convert to Symbol or F8). Now that each letter is a symbol, you can apply an instance name to each, and then follow the rest of the tutorial as stated.

A little self promotion here, but I found this tutorial particularly interesting because it creates a similar effect created in one of my own Flash tutorials on www.mikestickney.com: Flash zoom tutorial. Differences being my tutorial is written for AS 2.0 and uses tween animation, while this animation is done purely in ActionScript to get a similar effect.

Overall, pretty easy Flash tutorial worth checking out to get your feet wet with Flash ActionScript 3.0.

Additional Info
Level: Beginner
Version: CS3
ActionScript: 3.0
Online example: Yes
Source files available: No
Video Tutorial: No