Learn Flash or re-learn Director

I used to do a lot of stuff in Director about 5 years ago.
Then, I stopped and did nothing but print. My new company wants me
to do some multimedia stuff and I am not sure if I should stick
with Director. I can still get around (mostly) but I have forgotten
a LOT (getting older does not help!) and it's gonna take a while to
get back up to speed.
It looks like there is very little going on Director-wise
these days. Even on Adobe's website, you have to click into a
secondary product area to even find it! So I am wondering if maybe
I should forget about using Director and just try to learn Flash?
Am I mistaken? I sure would LIKE to be, as I have always prefered
Director to Flash. Thanks much!
Oh, I am mostly displaying video on CD and intranet, creating
navigation for archiving pdfs and that sort of thing. Nothing
"cutting-edge" by any stretch.

I've been using Flash for about 7 years, Director for over
15. I've built many industrial strength applications in both. My
impression is that the average task can be approached in 50
different ways in Director, all of which will work -- and 50
different ways in Flash, only one of which will work, and you have
to go through all 49 others before you find it.
Flash also, though purportedly a designer's tool, ironically
breaks every rule of user interface design itself.
Examples:
- The same hotkey means different things depending on which
window is active -- and there's not always a visual indication of
which window that is.
- Some windows are always in front, some are not.
- How many times does "timeline" appear in different
cascading menus? Six? Seven?
- The hotkeys for many (but not all) of the most commonly
used functions have vanished from the menus, even though they still
work.
- There are different and easily confused mouse interaction
events available for movie clips vs. buttons (e.g., press vs.
mouseDown). It would appear that rollover is not available for
movie clips, as it does not appear in Script Assist, yet it is.
- And which of these two lines would you rather have to
debug?
Director: repeat with i = 1 to 100
or
Flash: for (i=1; i<=100; i++) {
I really didn't want to turn this into an anti-Flash screed.
All in all, I love some of what Flash can do, I really do -- but I
find it a brittle, fragile, counterintuitive environment. In my
experience, Director just works. Flash fights me every step of the
way.
Please take with a kilo of salt, YMMV, all that...

Similar Messages

Where can I learn Flash CS5.5 basic + Game development?

Hey where can I learn Flash CS5.5 basics along with game development with the Adobe Gaming SDK?

By the way i own the site 02geek.com its an online school for programing and we do focus a lot of our time in flash. if you want a step by step from 0 to geek type of training give my site a try

Best book for Web Developer learning flash

I've gotten far on my own just using online tutorials and dinking around in Flash on my own but my boss(es) are starting to ask for more complex stuff that I simply can't learn by just piecing together my Flash education.
I know there's many, many books out there that will teach you Flash but can anyone recommend any particular one(s) that are more concentrated in creating Web elements as opposed to game or animation development?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I hope this link would be helpful for you books For web developer Using Flash by "William Sanders"
URL: http://search.oreilly.com/?q=Web+Developer+learning+flash&submit.x=9&submit.y=11
Best Regards,
Jake Bull
Assistant Manager
Recovery Bull Software

Newbie wants to learn Flash

i want to learn flash. I have a very simple idea, but i need
to start somewhere. I didn't get anything with my software. Where
can I go to see a tutorial on Flash. I found some, but they go into
all the cool things, and I need to learn the very basics, like
size, fading, etc.
thank you!

Flash comes with numerous excellent tutorials for beginners.
Check the Help menu. If they didn't come with your software, it
seems that perhaps you don't have a legal version of Flash?

FAQ: How do I go about learning Flash Pro?

Because of the many different ways of using Flash Pro, and the overabundance of learning materials for it, knowing where to start is a challenge in itself.
Here's what we recommend:
The Flash Pro Dev Center provides a guide called Five steps to learning Flash Professional. It will give you a clear sense of what to focus on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.
Learning the Flash workspace - This short video provides a good overview of the workspace.
Creating your first Flash Professional CS5 document - This tutorial is a great introduction.
Introducing Flash Professional - And this video is a good intro to Flash in general.
Also, Adobe TV has a show devoted to Learning Flash Professional CS5 & CS5.5. Focus on the videos with titles that start with "GS" (for Getting Started) first.

Srami... welcome to the forum...
your question is MASSIVELY broad and depends on your requirements and delivery expectations.
Basically... 'best' for what?
It's helpful if you provide some details for people to assist you.

Should I learn flash?

I'm in the first year of my degree and don't really have to spend much time studying because I've done most of it before. We learn the basics of HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash, Photoshop etc but it's not specific enough to get a decent job with.
I want to focus my attention (and money) on learning one main thing and mastering it but aren't sure which to go for. I like using flash and love all of it's capabilites but also realise how important it could be to maybe master photoshop and look at digital art type stuff.
Or maybe learn CSS or something like that.
I want to maybe go in to website design, but am also interested in many other things. I mean, even if I do go in to web design, should I learn flash or should I focus my attention on photoshop and HTML?
I'm not really an arty type, I don't want to just be a programmer I want to at least do some design.
I want to look at how easy things are to learn, how fun it would be, if it would be useful in a few years and also the demand for it.
Thoughts?
Cheers!!

It really depends on what you want to do mainly when you start your career.
Personally, I wanted to learn everything to be as valuable as possible in not only a corporate setting, but also personal projects.
I attended Art Institute for Web Development and took classes on all the most popular platforms and applications. The list includes...
XHTML/CSS
Photoshop
Flash
Dreamweaver
AS 3.0
PHP/MySQL
On top of that, we learned about things like Color Theory, Design Theory and other Web Dev concepts.
In the grand scheme of things though, what I learned in school is only a fraction of what I've learned once I graduated and started working. I continue to learn things everyday, it is pretty much endless.
So getting to your question about Flash...
I think it is a valuable skill set to have. I wouldn't stop at Flash though. You still need basic knowledge, if not, advanced knowledge of XHTML/CSS and PHP/MySQL because your Flash projects will most likely require those technologies to implement in real world applications.
It's a crazy journey to say the least and every day, things get crazier with technology evolving so quickly.
The topics I outlined above are things you want to have a strong foundation in.
From there you can really focus on what type of work you want to do. I pretty much do a little bit of everything but like you are wondering, it does limit how far you can master one particular thing. But with time, I believe you can master most if not all of the topics.
Hope that helps.
Dey

Learning Flash AND swing

hi.....do u think Flash > Applet AND VB.NET> Swing ?
I have little knowledge on Applet AND Swing......but I think Flash and VB.Net has exceeded and captured the market of Applet and Swing . Now a days most sites are using Flash for interactivity and VB for interface. do u think learning Flash and VB.NET would be worthy ? or should i update my knowledge on Applet and Swing ? One more bad thing regarding swing is , the code becomes bulky to get a simple interface .
i have one more doubt,......suppose i made a interface in VB.NET ( front end ) , can i run java code in back end ?
plz let me know what should i emphasis ?
thanks

It all depends on your current situation. Are you employed in IT? If so, what technologies is your employer using now. What technologies do they see themselves using next year? In 5 years?
What skills do you have now? Are you proficient in any technologies? Think about whether you want to be a jack-of-all-trades or very proficient in a smaller number of technologies. Are your current skills saleable to an employer? Should you improve your current skills or start learning new skills?
Hey, for a forum answer, I've certainly typed a lot of question marks!

"Learn Flash Professional CS4" Resources?

In Adobe TV there is a learning series titled "Learn Flash Professional CS4". In that series there are resources, files and such, that are mentioned. Where can I find these files? I searched my install and cannot locate them. Are they available somewhere on the Adobe site for download?
Thanks and have a great Holiday!!

the series you watched is taken from lynda.com
http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=683
if you enjoyed the videos on adobe tv, i would suggest that the $25 per month fee of Lynda.com will be very much worth it. This gives you access to tons of videos AND the sample files. Most decent books cost upwards of $40. I am in no way associated with lynda.com.

Is it a wise decision to use flash for e-Learning course.

Dear Friends,
Iam working for a company which is developing e-learning courses in Flash with AS3, Learning management system in dot net. There was a discussion with my superior, one guy was telling nowadays flash users reduced, in future flash will be outdated. This is not a wise decision to use flash for e-Learning.
Another issue is we cannot show our courses in ipad or Iphone.. please pass your comments and ideas to me. and suggest me, whether how can i use my swf courses in to ipad or iphone or tablets... Tell me whether iam in a right way.
i need another info, Whether silver light will be an alternate to create elearning courses with interactivity? That guy suggested Silverlight (because he is a dot net guy).
i need ur serious advice and info. Please tell me, list of companies using flash for Elearning development.
Kindly advice me whether i can continue my courses in Flash with AS3 or should i stop and change my work environment.
Regards,
Syed Abdul Rahim

The contents of what you're trying to teach make all the difference.
Are your tests very visual requiring interactivity with visual objects and media or are you just asking questions with various form-esque inputs (text inputs, radio inputs, etc)?
If it's very visual then it's worth considering AIR to some small extent but you'd really need to have a lot of time invested for that.
Ultimately I'd be converting it to HTML5/JS/CSS3. That's the 99.9% positivity rated presumption I'll make. As a general consideration, where Flash may previously have been used to "grade" a paper or tell the user their current answer is correct, this might need to change. You should be sending the users answer to a server to get a response. JavaScript is plain-text and can be read so you'd want to curb cheating by making sure the server contains the answers and not the client. This is an automation you'll lose by abandoning SWF.
I use C#.NET myself and I'd avoid silverlight like the plague. Let's be very clear here. Flash is not going away. They are repositioning themselves to handle more sophisticated endeavors in the future like full 3d games. Flash is auto-installed with the OS, the user base is not getting smaller. Silverlight almost never had a purpose to begin with, besides Microsoft just wanted a sandbox to play in itself. Windows Metro is the only potential obstacle in the future as it has been said to load SWF content externally, like an application, rather than embedded into the browser.

Learning Flash

Hello everyone. I am new to Flash. Can anyone give me some recommendations on the best way to go about learning Flash. My boss asked if I could start using it on our company website, I also want to start using it in my website. Thanks in advance. By the way, I already did the Flash video tutorials on Adobe.com, I want to learn on more of a skilled level.
This is my website with a little flash in it now: www.englishtrail.com

Keep checking out more tutorials and learn actionscript. Make sure you know HTML and Javascript well first.
This site has been extremely useful for me with their video tutorials: http://www.gotoandlearn.com/
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Simple Lyrics Search
Find Music By Lyrics
Song Words Search
G1 Games
Free Flash Games
Xenocide
Watch Free Porn Videos (18+)
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Embed flash exe in a director exe

I have a Director project programmed in 2004 with Macromedia
Director MX 2004 that is a standalone executable program. The
client has sent me an asset he wants embedded in the program that
is itself a Flash .exe program. Is it possible to embed an exe in
an exe? Any Xtras or is this compatible with Director 11 (which I
don't have yet). Any help would be great.

Typically, you would embed a Flash .swf file into Director,
not the exe.
I don't think you can embed an .exe into Director. You can
make the
other exe open in another window using the open command, but
if you need
it embedded in the director file, then it would need to be
swf.

Help Learning Flash

I have no experience in Flash nor anything that even closely
relates to or carries over in any way (Although I am not stupid...
:) ). I have learned how to do many things within Flash in the past
couple days, however I am having trouble learning to create buttons
to navigate around the flash document. Let me describe what I am
doing, then feel free to offer any feedback as I may be going about
the entire process wrong.
What I am doing is creating a tutorial for an encounter for a
game I play. This tutorial will contain about 5 different sections
each of which is a screens worth of data. I have created little
flash movies that run little animations (ok... yeah... like 1...
but like I said... I only started using Flash a few days ago...).
This method would work for this other project if I could create
buttons or links to different points on the time line. So currently
I have a flash document that starts as a Title Page with some
animated content then this basically morphs into an overview page
with more content and animation and this process continues to chain
from one section like this to another. What would be nice is to
have links on the overview page that allow the user to choose which
section to jump to if they want. Then to have control buttons to
advance to the next section, pause, and go back to the overview
page.
Now I also thought that maybe I could create different scenes
and just jump to these different scenes. I have been able to create
a series of scenes that would work for this purpose, however when
it comes to creating the buttons I am at ground zero...
Well... ok, not exactly ground Zero... I can make a button...
modify its different states... but I don't see how to tell it how
to do anything other than link to a web site... certainly no kind
of linking within the document. I have found tutorials on
controlling Video but those are off topic and useless to me...
The animated elements are some moving text, an animated Gif,
and things changing in size, color, alpha and so forth all done on
the time line with motion tweens, transformations and transitions.
I hope I have been descriptive enough and am not looking for
anyone to write me a walk through, a simple point in the right
direction to help I can find for myself would be excellent.
Thanks for your time

Alright... I am very proud of myself and have figured out how
to make these buttons and get them to work... now I just had to add
some complexity... let me just share how I am setting up my buttons
now and what added element I want and see what we can do...
First I place an image on the stage and convert it to a Movie
Clip then I create the following for Actionscript 3
overviewBTN.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onClick);
function onClick(event:MouseEvent):void
gotoAndPlay("Overview1", "Overview");
This works fantastically... but I wanted to have a transition
from scene to scene that had some flow and was efficient... so I
added 10 frames to my starting point as a transition out of that to
a generic state that I can pickup and stage for whatever I want...
So what I am after now is the ability to play 10 frames in my
current scene then jump to and play the intended scene... here is
what I have tried...
overviewBTN.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onClick);
function onClick(event:MouseEvent):void
gotoAndPlay("bgnfd", "Contents");
gotoAndStop("endfd", "Contents");
gotoAndPlay("Overview1", "Overview");
Now the odd thing is... each "goto" line works by itself
however when I put the last line in it skips the first two... I
have tried many combinations of this...
Thanks again for the help Cliff Ray as it was your help that
set me off on my journey and have made great progress.

Using Flash Pro and Flash Builder together | Learn Flash Professional CS5 & CS5.5 | Adobe TV

Adobe Flash Professional CS5 and Adobe Flash Builder 4 enable time-saving workflows. Learn how to develop content in Flash while editing associated ActionScript code in Flash Builder 4, switching easily between the two applications to edit and test.
http://adobe.ly/w50IJm

This doesn't seem to work the same way in CS5.5 / CS6
In the video the class files are associated with the FLA, when you switch back to Flash Pro...
So far, when I follow these steps the classes are not associated with the FLA, the class field for the stage in Flash remains blank.
Also, clicking the edit icon in the properties of a MovieClip and allowing FB to create the file, does not associate the as file with the MovieClip.
Returning to Flash Pro and clicking the Edit button attempt to create a new file once again, but since the file already exists in FB it just remains on the New ActionScript Class dialog, with the Finish Button grayed out (because a file with the same name already exists in FB).
The resulting AS files for a given are created in a sub folder under:
Documents/Adobe Flash Builder 4.6/[Project]/src-[Project]/*.as
Yet the FLA is located in Documents:
Documents/[Project].fla
Should the as files exists with the fla, is a folder reference supposed to be set, or did I miss a step somewhere?
Is a source path supposed to be added to Flash Pro for:
Documents/Adobe Flash Builder 4.6/[Project]
I am currently on a Mac, but noticed the same behavior in Windows at work yesterday.
Thanks,
Josh

Flash integration with Learning Management System

Has anyone had any experience hooking Flash up with a
learning management system? I'm using Zinc right now but I'm
wondering what hooks I would need to communicate with any eLMS. Any
help or suggestions would be appreciated

If you Google 'Flash SCORM' you should find a good deal of
info.
Dave -
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/

How did you learn flash?

I have never created a website before and I want to know if
Flash will help me accomplish my goal.
I am having a devil of a time locating tutorials and books
that can help me learn what I need to know in Flash CS3.
Most of what I find is for Flash 8. I have yet to find any
tutorial to make a map like map quest that I can grab move and zoom
using a mouse. I am starting to wonder if Flash is even
capable of doing this. Can anyone point me to a book on Amazon or
a Flash CS3 tutorial. The books I have researched on Amazon
don't specifically show in the table of contents moving and zooming
things with a mouse.
Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Hello ...99% of flash 8 tutorials can be used in Flash CS3
Flash CS3 hasn't changed that much, except for it's Action
Script stuff
& its ability to import complete AI & Photoshop
files,
dont let ActionScript 3 scare you, because it scared me at
first , its more complex than AS2
but now that Flash has resolved most of it's Action Script
stuff
iam sure the Flash Team will have more time now
to finally put in the long awaited 3D tools ! ;o) ..then it
will be basically capable of anything
if you want to create a map quest as you say , that will have
interaction
then you will need to learn at least the basics of
actionscript & behaviors
other than that , if you are an artist & animator , then
Flash is the best api for that
check out cartoonsmart.com & mudbubble.com to get an idea
of the drawing power of Flash ..from there on its all up to your
imagination my friend
the best resource book for newbies is the Help & Live
Docs of Flash
but there are many out there that have dedicate alot of time
creating free tutorials
also another site you might want to check out , i think it
will give you some great idea's of what you are interested in
creating is ...www.hungrysuitcase.com ;o)
peace John

Learn Flash or re-learn Director

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