Tom’s Graphic Design Journal

Well obviously my previous post is related here...in that Flex really is Actionscript3 (when it gets compiled). However, some people have seen page turning examples in Flash8. There's also even been some 3D (Sandy) and that's been carried over to AS3/Flash CS3/Flex as well.

I wanted to clarify though that the manner in which things are done is different and much faster than AS2. I'm by no means an Actionscript expert. I write PHP applications and work with HTML/CSS. I'm a graphic designer by nature and photographer. However, I'm also a researcher.

So what is the power of Flex and Actionscript 3? SPEED. As well as some new features brought to us by Actionscript 3 (new features of course that are available to us in Flex and in Flash CS3). However I like Flex over Flash CS3 since I'm already comfortable with XML and the Eclipse IDE, I find myself being able to move through Flex very quickly.

What are these new features in AS3? One main excitement that I'm running into is the socket connections. AS2 allowed this for XML but now we can connect and read/send data in many new formats including binary. So this makes possible connections to SMTP/POP and other such things. Ok, build on that one step further with Adobe's Apollo and you can create e-mail and instant messenger applications to run on your desktop. Remember the power of speed. These applications can be developed very quickly! Here's another example of what the socket connection can be used for ... joystick control in Flash.

I don't think Flex, AS3, or Flash CS3 have caught on yet...and I'm not really sure Flash CS3 is going to propel the Flash users further and engage them as much as Flex would. The reason being is because Flash CS3 still behaves like Flash 8 and there's not much to entice someone to take advantage of AS3. It's been designed to be se