sixrevisions.com by Mobify

12 Websites To Help You Learn Flash/ActionScript

Jul 10 2008 by Jacob Gube | 68 Comments

Adobe Flash is an excellent technology that allows developers to add interactivity and smooth animations to web pages. Its popularity is so immense that you’ll find many websites dedicated to helping developers interested in Flash.

In this article, you’ll find 12 wonderful websites that’s worth a bookmark if you’re looking into sharpening your Flash development skills. For each entry, you’ll find three tutorials from the website so that you can see what’s in store for you.

1. kirupa.com

kirupa.com is a site that features excellent Flash tutorials (as well as Silverlight, ASP.net, PHP, and Photoshop). There are plenty of well-written, detailed tutorials and articles pertaining to Flash sectioned into seven categories including Basic Drawing, Special Effects, Server-side Flash, and Game Development.

2. gotoandlearn.com

Some people learn best by visualization and following along with the instructor step-by-step in real-time. If you’re the type that prefers to learn by watching instructional videos, check out gotoandlearn.com – a website by Lee Brimelow that offers free Flash video tutorials.

Tutorial examples:

3. gotoAndPlay()

gotoAndPlay() is dedicated to providing resources for Flash game developers. It’s a community that has a forum, interviews from professional developers, and reviews of books and resources. It also has tutorials and articles about Flash game development that can be filtered by topic, expertise, and type.

Tutorial examples:

4. Adobe – Flash Developer Center

Adobe’s Flash Developer Center is a community for Flash developers. Here, you’ll find tutorials, articles, and related resources about Flash. You should also check out the ActionScript Technology Center for articles on specifically about ActionScript.

Tutorial examples:

5. Flash Kit

Flash Kit is one of the biggest and oldest community dedicated to Flash development. With over 600,000 members, you won’t have a hard time finding people with a similar interest in Flash. There’s a forums section, free resources that you can download and use in your Flash projects, and a large tutorials section that includes 18 categories.

Tutorial examples:

6. ActionScript.org

ActionScript.org is a site that provides resources and information pertaining to Flash, Flex, and ActionScript. They have a fairly active Forums section as well as an ActionScript Library that currently has over 700 objects you can download.

Tutorial examples:

7. Flash and Math ActionScript 3 Tutorials

Flash and Math has a great collection of tutorials on AS3. They cover basic to advanced topics so that Flash developers of any level can find something they can read and learn from. Many of the tutorials include the source files for download.

Tutorial examples:

8. Flash Tutorials on Pixel2Life

Pixel2Life, according to the site, is the "largest tutorial index catering to graphic designers, webmasters and programmers". With over 40,000 indexed tutorials, you’ll find many links to tutorials in their Flash Tutorials section.

Indexed tutorial examples:

9. Flash Perfection

Flash Perfection is a website with a large collection of Flash tutorials, tips, and tricks from various websites. Flash Perfection has 23 categories to help you find information more quickly.

Indexed tutorial examples:

10. metah.ch

metah.ch has some awesome video tutorials on Flash, ActionScript, Flex, and AIR. Files associated with the tutorials can be downloaded and used in your own projects.

Tutorial examples:

11. LukaMaras.com

LukaMaras.com offers detailed Flash tutorials and resources designed to help you learn Flash. There’s also a small forums section with over 3,000 registered users where you can discuss anything related to Flash.

Tutorial examples:

12. Flashmagazine

Flashmagazine is an online magazine dedicated to Flash news, reviews, information, and resources. The Tutorials section has some excellent tutorials for Flash developers.

Tutorial examples:

I hope you found this article useful! Since there’s so many websites out there dedicated to Flash development, I can’t include them all, so if you didn’t see your favorite – please share it with all of us in the comments.

68 Comments

Ben Welch-bolen

July 11th, 2008

Awesome article once again guys! Flash might be coming back if google is really going to index it!

mike

July 11th, 2008

Thanks for the links. Lynda.com is pretty good but it ain’t free.

liam

July 11th, 2008

Wow, nice one. Good to know there is more out there than just gotoandlearn.com

I think I need to get back into flash :)

Dhane Diesil

July 11th, 2008

Beautiful!!! I have been looking for something like this for ages.

Spis stron

July 11th, 2008

I think the best party is flashkit, for a very long time I use sources from this site.

Matt

July 11th, 2008

I’ve been meaning to get back into Flash, might take a look at some of these. Thanks!

Zany

July 11th, 2008

Flash ….. don’t know when (if) i’ll be learning that ….. :)

Jacob Gube

July 11th, 2008

Glad you guys/gals found this useful! My primary intent here is to stimulate interest in Flash development. Many people shun away from it, but I think it has plenty of applications. For example: for e-learning/distance-learning where you can provide activities, quizzes, and other interactive components to enrich the user’s experience.

What do you guys think about using Flash?

Andy

July 11th, 2008

No senocular?

V Krishna

July 11th, 2008

I think the idea of promoting a proprietary and closed standard for the web is absolutely horrible. Adobe has a history of not supporting all platforms, and even if they didn’t, the internet should *never* become too reliant on one technology or one company. Anybody else still suffering from the problems that developed when IE had the market cornered? 99% of the stuff done in flash can be done just as well with a good working knowledge of javascript and dhtml, and can be done in an open way that doesn’t require proprietary technology for it to work. Boo on flash, and Boo on flash developers. If javascript really is too heavy/clunky for you, you need to learn it better, or use one of the many tools that can turn python/ruby/perl/your-language-of-choice into javascript.

John Jones

July 11th, 2008

Flash totalyl ROCKS dude. Especially now that Google can index flash its even better.

http://www.FireMe.To/udi

Dan Black

July 12th, 2008

I think we’ll see a resurgence in flash until html 5 is fully adopted.

ben

July 12th, 2008

cool
http://www.duivesteyn.net

Craig Farrall

July 12th, 2008

Great post, plenty of useful websites to learn flash there, will definately have to go an check that one out.

Pedro

July 12th, 2008

More resources on flash :

http://www.unmatchlist.com/flash.php

Best

DW

July 12th, 2008

V.Krishna, please show us how to animate Metalocalypse using Javascript. Then, show us some examples of Javascript-based games that are superior to their Flash counterparts. Then, have a nice glass of STFU.

Jacob Gube

July 12th, 2008

@V Krishna: Some valid points, but I think that there are many things that JavaScript can’t do that Flash can.

I do strongly agree that if you can do it using JS, use JS instead. But in terms of animations and very robust interactive applications (such as Flash games), I don’t think JavaScript can match the “fluid-ness”, complexity in animation, response time, and speed of development that using Flash offers.

@DW: Though I have no hard-line policy on the type of comments you can make on Six Revisions – I do encourage readers to treat each other civilly and respect each other’s opinions. I won’t change your original comment, but if you’d like to retract it or change it, contact me.

However, your message and opinion is valid – JS isn’t a match for Flash in terms of creating complex, highly-animated Flash movies and games.

Dr. James

July 12th, 2008

How exactly would google index it and how long would that be? Because my buddy made a great looking site but then realized that no one can find it…..lol.

Check it out!

http://www.fuelfixer.org

dc website designer

July 12th, 2008

Anyone knows a good resource to learn c++?

Jacob Gube

July 12th, 2008

@Dr. James: Check out this article out on Adobe: Adobe – Developer Center : SWF searchability FAQ. It explains Adobe’s plans on making SWF files more search-friendly. Hope that helps!

Jason

July 12th, 2008

You might check your site for seo friendly to appear in search results. you may chek it by using some free online resources available like http://tools.khrido.com/ or http://www.dnsstuff.com/ etc.

Alex

July 13th, 2008

While this is a good list, I’d be careful with some of them. Flash has a notoriously bad reputation on the web, mostly due to very unskilled people trying to use it in places it shouldn’t be used.

Those people are the ones who go to these tutorial sites for a quick copy/paste solution and don’t actually have, or intend to have any idea what they are doing. Sites like Flashkit and Pixel2Life just promote this by having very relaxed standards on the quality of tutorials they allow.

Kirupa is a fair bit better, though. And gotoAndLearn is an awesome place to learn from (Lee Brimelow really knows his stuff).

In my opinion, you probably should have listed the AS2/AS3 livedocs on here. Anyone seriously wanting to learn Actionscript can get everything they need from the language docs, and it will probably become a very valuable resource for them, once they learn how to use it.

bfree

July 14th, 2008

Thanks for the links …. check this one too
http://www.flash-db.com/Tutorials/

kipas

July 14th, 2008

Flash is great for gaming and banner. but not good for website, because it’s not SEO friendly and google not index it

Sallie Parker

July 14th, 2008

“Flash has a notoriously bad reputation on the web”? Where? In some ill-informed “why Flash is bad” hit piece from 1999 or 2000? Flash may well have looked like a farrago of annoying intros and missing plugins, but that was long ago and far away. Today Flash technologies are completely integral to the web. I don’t know a single working web designer/developer who regards Flash as an evil toy to be avoided.

Antonio

July 14th, 2008

And Juliusdesign? no?

Fox

July 15th, 2008

More flash tutorials in:
http://www.adobeflash-pack.com/

Daniel Magin

July 16th, 2008

Flash is great if used sensibly! Easier indexing in the search engines such as Google will open its use up further.

Good stuff!

ben

July 18th, 2008

looks great. more of this at http://www.duivesteyn.com.au

Bart

July 19th, 2008

A good post about flash/actionscript! I made a post like this a couple months ago. You can see it here.

http://internetanddesign.com/other-things/learning-flash/

R K Singhal

July 22nd, 2008

I want to design my website please help me

Craig Huffstetler

July 30th, 2008

Great post!

jdivis

August 7th, 2008

Flashmove is a pretty good website to help you learn Flash/Actionscript as well.

Jason

August 8th, 2008

Very surprised that http://www.ultrashock.com/ was left out. One of the top flash resources ever. period. Also http://www.actionscript.org has a forum that is unmatched. http://www.gotoandlearn.com/ is a great resource as well.

Amolsingh Rajput

August 27th, 2008

I realy Thanks all these people who are providing tutorials in a very easy way on sites of all softwares & technologies.Thanks By HEART !!

Kingston

September 2nd, 2008

tutorialized.com and tutorio.com can be added to the list along with toxicab

Gayan

September 21st, 2008

I have simple Drag n Drop interactivity in my flash movie. There are draggable objects to be dropped on their targets. If they reach the desired Target they stick to that target. If the object does not reach its target, it snaps back to its original x,y location.

Object1.attachMovie(“Cercle1″,”Ob1″, 0);
Object2.attachMovie(“Cercle2″,”Ob2″, 0);

Object1.onPress = function():Void {
this.startDrag(true);
{
}
this.swapDepths(0);
F1xstart = 97;
F1ystart = 97;
};
Object1.onRelease = function():Void {
this.stopDrag();
if (eval(this._droptarget) == Target1) {
reply_txt.text = “You got it!” ;
Object1._x = Target1._x;
Object1._y = Target1._y;
this.enabled = false;

} else {
Object1._x = F1xstart;
Object1._y = F1ystart;
}
};

Object2.onPress = function():Void {
this.startDrag(true);
{
}
this.swapDepths(0);
F2xstart = 200;
F2ystart = 150;
};
Object2.onRelease = function():Void {
this.stopDrag();
if (eval(this._droptarget) == Target2) {
reply_txt.text = “You got it!” ;
Object2._x = Target2._x;
Object2._y = Target2._y;
this.enabled = false;
} else {
Object2._x = F2xstart;
Object2._y = F2ystart;

}
};

How can I randomize the location of the objects (Object1,Object2), and then essentially capture that location and plug it dynamically into the code above?

And how can I randomize the location of the targets ( Target1,Target2) for those objects to be dropped onto?

(And I suppose an additional question would be, so I don’t hide any content, how do I do this without overlaying the objects and targets on top of each other?)

Thanks
Gayan

Dan

November 22nd, 2008

Hi great resource, I was looking for some site that I could work through to develop some more creative skills.

Does anyone know any site similar to this for developing skills in Information Architecture and wireframes?

Thanks

Kathy

January 3rd, 2009

Been looking for this kinda list for ages!

Great article…Thanks guys.

GO FLASH + ACTIONSCRIPT!

SINA

March 23rd, 2009

the best design site

jsk

April 10th, 2009

please can someone direct me or tell me how to code a AI character in flash so that the program knows which way its going, left or right so the x axis, i don’t need the code to flip the character though,
any help would be greatly appreciated as its all i need to complete in my game
thanks anyway

ikki

May 15th, 2009

nice thank you for the information

Sidharth Bajaj

June 30th, 2009

Used a lot of these websites when i was learning. :) .

KroooS

September 14th, 2009

Nice websites..
Excellant & Greate..
Really makes me Happy, Flash is one of the most growing software, really it reaches its goal soon, i hope Flash.

tis

November 8th, 2009

Great Collection!

i’m a designer starting with coding and i use a AIR app to save and share code snippets i use -

//aSnippet

http://www.aSnippet.com/blog

Enjoy :)

Martin Legris

December 13th, 2009

May I suggest this website? http://tutorials.as3.ca it is a compilation of the best AS3 tutorials on the internet, organized by category & difficulty level. It might not be a pretty site but the content is golden! It is a work in progress, still adding tutorials weekly.

Thanks

Martin

Flash

December 22nd, 2009

Thanks for this great roundup! I love Kirupa much, this is a #1 website for me.
By the way, there are a lot of useful material on flashperfection as well.
Anyway, thanks much. Well done!

Brian

January 4th, 2010

Hi,

Thanks for the post.

You can also look at http://www.flashorama.com and http://www.brianwiltshire.net/lab for free source code and tutorials

Shandra

April 7th, 2010

Thank you for sharing, it’s a very useful list!

HollJo5

July 3rd, 2010

Thank you so very much for this!!! I’m as green as a granny smith apple when it comes to flash and I’m totally excited about it now!

SQHR

July 8th, 2010

You can learn flash here for absolutely free:

http:/learntoflash.blogspot.com

uslugi

July 25th, 2010

Great article…Thank you guys.

Salvync

August 16th, 2010

Thank you so much sharing this list of sites. I found some of them in my own but I see some I have never tried. Thank you again very useful.

Chris

September 24th, 2010

Great list, Jacob!

Please let me recommend also a site with online customizable and ready-to-use diagrams in ActionScript:

http://model-xtractor.com/web/Diagrams.aspx?p=F

Mike Burianek

September 27th, 2010

Awesome resource! I’m definitely using this! Thanks alot!!!

Raja Jee

September 28th, 2010

Thanks for such useful information.

LoVeAaPpLe

February 12th, 2011

I want to learn swf, so plz tell me how run swf files in ubuntu….

Sameera Gujral

March 21st, 2011

I just love this blog and the information is very much useful…I m so Happy……….;)

Evgeny

May 5th, 2011

Look at http://www.active.tutsplus.com – amazing resource!

Ed

May 8th, 2011

Thanks for this amazing flash tutorial list. Just what I was searching for!

Zero_ven

May 22nd, 2011

To [LoVeAaPpLe]:
swf can be shown on website,and U should setup FlashPlayer
IDE：U may choose FlashDevelop
that’s all.

Zero_ven

May 22nd, 2011

Just what I am searching for Too.
Happy to learn more from U site :)

Anyway, thanks much. Well done!

rohit

September 28th, 2011

well thanks a lot lot for providing such good resources towards FLASH and ACTION SCRIPT

Can we use our ‘c’ knowledge with flash if so reply

Dan

October 19th, 2011

A good tutorial for any wannabe flash designers. I will link this out to possible flash designers on http://www.ninjamadness.com and may be we can get some good games designed.

1. kirupa.com

Tutorial examples:

2. gotoandlearn.com

Tutorial examples:

3. gotoAndPlay()

Tutorial examples:

4. Adobe – Flash Developer Center

Tutorial examples:

5. Flash Kit

Tutorial examples:

6. ActionScript.org

Tutorial examples:

7. Flash and Math ActionScript 3 Tutorials

Tutorial examples:

8. Flash Tutorials on Pixel2Life

Indexed tutorial examples:

9. Flash Perfection

Indexed tutorial examples:

10. metah.ch

Tutorial examples:

11. LukaMaras.com

Tutorial examples:

12. Flashmagazine

Tutorial examples:

68 Comments

Ben Welch-bolen

V Krishna

John Jones

DW

Jason

bfree

Sallie Parker

Antonio

Craig Huffstetler

Amolsingh Rajput

Kingston

Gayan

Kathy

jsk

HollJo5

Mike Burianek

LoVeAaPpLe

Sameera Gujral

Zero_ven

rohit

Leave a Comment