Jason Gordon

Today I, Jason Gordon, created my first production flash applet. It's very simple, but the applet is a great beginner's example for how to create a timeline effect animation and use basic action script. Below I'll describe the application in terms of its component parts.

I. Animations

1. First I created 3 textfields and entered a word in each one, "LIVE.", "RIGHT.", "NOW.", respectively.
2. Then, for each textfield, I inserted a timeline effect on it. The effect was a fade in transition lasting 24 frames (1sec @ 24fps).
3. I then lined up all the frames so that live animated, when finished, right animate, and when finished now animated.
4. On the last frame for each of these layers I added a keyframe and to this keyframe i attached an actionscript action. The code was just stop();

II. Countdown

The countdown was a bit less tricky, honestly. I've done countdowns in code a few times in the past, so the code part wasn't new. Attaching the actionscript was a trick. I didn't realize I just had to click the stage somewhere and start typing! Man..tricky son of bitch you are, flash.

For the countdown I created a layer and added 2 textfields to it. In the first textfield i typed "Countdown: ". The second I made a dynamic textfield, and named it result. Below is the actionscript I wrote to implement the countdown:

timer();
 
// Make this happen again, once a second
var timeint:Number = setInterval(timer, 1000);
 
function timer() {
	var showStart:Date = new Date("Fri Sep 11 2009 9:00:00 AM");
	var now:Date = new Date();
	var countdown:Number = (showStart.time - now.time) / 1000;
 
	var out:String = "";
 
	// Determine remaining days
	out = String(int(countdown / 86400)) + "days ";
	countdown = countdown % 86400;
 
 
	// Determine remaining hours
	out += String(int(countdown / 3600)) + "hrs ";  
	countdown = countdown % 3600;
 
	// Determine remaining minutes
	out += String(int(countdown / 60)) + " mins ";
	countdown = countdown % 60;
 
	// Determine remaining seconds
	out += String(int(countdown)) + "sec";
	result.text = String(out);
};

And here is the final product: