As I mentioned a week or so ago, I’m working on the Flash CS3 UI components for the Ribbit service at Infrared5. They are going to really rock. Already, we have a few basic components that you can drag right on stage in a Flash 9 movie, set some parameters so they can communicate to each other, and have a fully functional Ribbit app that can make and receive phone calls, all without writing a line of code! There’s still several more components to make, including contact and message management components, and then a lot of work to do on setting them up to be easily skinnable and stylable. But it’s a lot of fun so far.
I made a LOT of components in AS2. Free ones, commercial ones, ones used in-house or on certain projects. I’ve also made more than a few AS3, code-only components. I’ve dabbled in Flex components. But Flash CS3 components are a whole new animal. In a lot of ways they are very similar to the ActionScript 2 based V2 components. But there are some pretty serious differences. Overall, I’d say they are far better than the V2 components, and while that isn’t really saying much, I’ll try to emphasize the FAR better part.
I’m not going to give a tutorial on how to make CS3 components, as that is covered in incredible depth in the 9-part article on Adobe.com:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/creating_as3_components.html
I figured it would be good to identify a few interesting tidbits here and there as I come across them, though. Things that might be hidden away in that article, or not mentioned at all, but will certainly kill you, or at least kill an afternoon of your time trying to figure them out. Let my wasted afternoon serve some purpose. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us!
I’ve spent a lot of time going through that same article, and I’m having a ton of trouble getting the live preview to work. Seems like some values update on stage and others don’t. Anyway, can’t wait to hear what you have to say about all that stuff!