Beginner Actionscript Resource Question

Question

Are there any good resources that explain how to set up a .as file to run a flash app?  I've purchased two books and they both utterly suck at this.  This should be easy material, but I can't find anything.  I don't want to code in the timeline.  I don't want to buy another book for this.
Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

if you want to use a .as file without code, you are basically screwed. .as files are code, and the file does not have any way to know you want to use it without you explicity telling it to use it. if the file is in the same work directory of the rest of your project, you dont have to do that much, you can use it as you would any code written in the same movie, if you are using a class declaration (but the filename of the .as should be the same name as the class declared inside). if you are keeping this file in some other directory, you must use 'packgage' and import declarations according to your file tree structure
filename example.as
package {
public class example { // extends Sprite {
public static function example_func():void {
trace("called from a movie");
} //example_func
}//class
}package
_________in a movie inside the same directory:
example.example_func();