Flash is a highly creative medium & ActionScript 3 is a powerful language.
On the other hand, it is mostly hard to speed up when working with Flash as AS3 can be quite time-consuming & there are things to do (planning & setup of Flash movies) before you can actually get anything done.
This is where HYPE comes in.
HYPE is a creative coding framework built on top of ActionScript 3 which aims to enable Flash developers of every level to creatively play & express themselves.
The framework is extendible as it is possible to write new classes & improve it.
There are lots of examples provided at the HYPE website which are worth checking out.
Requirements: Flash Professional CS4+
Photo Booth is a tiny open source Flash application that can capture images from a webcam.
The script is built with AS3 + PHP5 and can be instantly implemented to any website.
It can be a great add-on when asking users to upload an avatar or creating a web application around photos.
To see how it works, a demo can be found here.
Requirements: PHP5
In order to better understand this resource, let’s describe augmented reality first. From Wikipedia:
Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality
EZFlar is an open source ActionScript library that enables you to create such a media. Or, you can use the online generator.
How it works?
It simply inserts a pre-defined media inside a "pre-defined object" in another media.
There is an online generator provided. You’ll need a webcam & a printer to test it instantly:
- Select the media to be integrated (image, video, sound, URL, etc.)
- Print a special shape provided
- Display the printed sheet while the application records you through your webcam
- It will insert the "selected media" to the place where you hold the sheet.
It may look complicated, however, you can check this video or this one to see it working.
JC Play List is a free Flash list component for creating sliders from multimedia lists (for ex: .xml and RSS 2.0 feeds from Picasa and Flickr)
It is built with AS3 & can display any kind of lists including items that contain images, titles, descriptions, index numbers, additional information, custom backgrounds and overlays.
The component offers various navigation methods which can be used together or separately, like:
- navigation through previous/next buttons
- scroll bar and/or mouse movement
- horizontal/vertical layout
And, although it comes with a default skin, it is possible to create & implement new ones.
Compatibility: Adobe Flash CS3+
Flash Bookmarks is a free Flash component for integrating social bookmarking links to any website easily.
It supports the most popular sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Facebook, Google and Reddit.
The look & feel of the social bookmarking menu created with the component is totally customizable. It is possible to change:
- the icons to be displayed
- the size of the icons
- the aspect of the hint text for the icons
- details regarding the bookmarked data.
Flash Bookmarks can be both added by drag’n drops from the component panel of Flash or by code (AS3).
Compatibility: AS3, Flash CS3+, FlashPlayer 9+
MegaZine 3 is an open source & free Flash pageflip engine for presenting any content with a book-like interface where users can flip the pages.
It is built with ActionScript 3 & customized very easily via XML files.
Features of MegaZine 3:
- deep linking with integrated SWFaddress support
- control bar to navigate through pages easier (can be disabled)
- page caching for faster browsing
- ability to use any content in pages like sound, images, movies & more
- easy customization of background, colors & ability to create transparent pages
- advanced localization support (even sounds, iamges can be bound to languages)
- image zooming & image galleries inside pages
This pageflip engine is well-documented & a working demo can be found here.
Tip: There is a batch-script offered at the download page for auto converting PDF documents into Flash pageflip presentations.
Some other free pageflip engines:
Requirements: No Requirements
Axiis is an open source data visualization framework & based on Degrafa, Flex & ActionScript 3.0.
It is a resource for both beginner & expert developers to create elegant charts.
Axiis comes with both ready-to-use visualization components & abstract layout patterns + rendering classes that makes it possible to create custom visualizations.
To view some beautiful examples of this framework, click here.
Requirements: Adobe Flex
This is a very flexible Flash full-text-search component that supports multiple images and texts.
All aspects of it can be customized via XML files, including the images, texts, colors, sizes and more.
The component supports unlimited text / images & it can resize the height depending on the number of items.
For skinning it, no Flash experience is needed as everything is done by updating the XML files (colors, speed of the effects, etc.).
The download package comes with all the source code including FLA files, PSDs & fonts used.
Requirements: No Requirements
Kap Lab is presenting 5 impressive & free visualization components for Flex.
All components are AS3 based & some of them offer multiple layout options which makes them very flexible in means of presentation.
The components are:
- Diagrammer (for diagram creation, mind mapping…)
- Visualizer (for displaying hierarchies like organizational schemas..)
- Radar Chart (for data analysis, comparing data items…)
- Treemap (for inventory management, social news mapping…)
- Ring Chart (for displaying statistics)
Examples are provided for each component with the sources & there is a support forum where users share their experiences.
P.S. Download requires a free membership.
SoulWire, a blog dedicated to ActionScript & illustrations, is presenting good looking & customizable flash menus / animations.
There are both AS2 & AS3 resources and source codes can be downloaded too.
A totally customizable menu, built with AS3, that is very suitable for displaying various menu items in a vertical space easily.
An AS3 class for creating 3D ribbons effects. It uses TweenMax as the tweening engine & has more than the features presented in the demo (which may be processor intensive).
Besides the resources presented, there are other great ones like:
