AIM (Animation, Interaction, Multimedia) Your Projects with Flash: Interaction

Course Information Syllabus Calendar Requirements CourseQuest Workshop Course Resources Exploration Projects Applications Approaches Evaluation Basics Animation Interaction Multimedia Planning Issues Packaging		Interaction Although Flash creates excellent animations, it’s also possible to make your project interactive. In other words, the project can change its behavior or appearance in response to user actions. For example, pressing a button may trigger music to play or an animation to start. A blank map or timeline becomes interactive when "hot spots" are added to particular areas. A list of questions and answers become engaging when each answer provides different feedback. A bunch of graphics become a tool when users can drag elements around the screen to create their own project. Try It! Explore examples of interactivity including Anatomy of a Rover, Art Games, Room Planner, and Student Materials. What makes these examples "interactive"? Why are the effective or appealing? The following links take you to the resources on this page. Types of Interactivity Active Learning ActionScript in Flash Components in Flash Adding Interactivity to Flash Projects Learn More
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		Types of Interactivity Developing quality interaction takes careful planning. Match the needs of your audience with engaging, interactive elements. Question and Answers To check understanding To prompt attention To expand thinking Non-Linear Access For alternatives For depth For remediation Tools Creativity Tools - write, draw, paint Utilities - mail, print, notes, forms, surveys Reference Tools - glossary, definitions, examples Try It! Explore examples of interactivity including Approximating Pi, Destination: Modern Art, Dogs Around the World, WickED Interactives, MyPyramid, Pauly Playhouse, and Nobel Prize. What different types of interactivity can you identify? Return to the Top
		Active Learning Interactivity is an important element of an effective learning environment because it gets students actively involved with the instructional materials. Rather than passively viewing the screen, users are asked to point, click, and drag which requires students to make choices, solve problems, and draw conclusions. As you build your interactive elements, consider each of these areas of active learning: Motivation Attention Engagement Challenge Critical Thinking Creative Thinking Try It! Explore the Scholastic Activities website for many examples of interactivity. Building Language for Literacy Clifford Make a Word Flashlight Readers I Spy Opps Hoops Monster Bugs Puzzled States Identify the interactive element. Are you pointing, clicking, or dragging? How do these activities active involve students in learning? Which are most and least effective? Return to the Top
		ActionScript in Flash You’ll be using an authoring language called ActionScript to write simple programs to control interactions in your project. ActionScript is an object-oriented programming language. All interactions have two elements: events and actions. Events are triggers. They are things that happen while the movie is playing such as clicking a button or rolling over an image. An event also occurs when things happen on the Timeline such as when the Playhead reaches a particular keyframe. In Actionscript, you’ll be using words such as on release and on mouseOver to describe these events. Actions are short instructions that tell Flash what things should happen as a result of events. For example, when a mouse is clicked a sound might play, elements might appear or disappear, a series of frames might be skipped, or data might be sent to a database for analysis. Regardless of the type of interactivity, ActionScript is an authoring language that is used to specific what should happen when an event is triggered. You need to learn enough about ActionScript to be able to build in the specific commands needed to accomplish your goals. ActionScript coding can be placed in two areas in your Flash project: frames on the Timeline and objects on the Stage (i.e., buttons, symbols). Buttons are a common source of interactivity. Flash buttons are designed to automatically detect events such as mouse roll overs and clicks. You can write simple ActionScripts to control the action. Read Flash ActionScript 2.0 Learning Guide from Adobe Macromedia. This article provides a great introduction to ActionScript.
		Try It! Try Helen Triolo's flash-creations website contains the following wonderful short tutorials. Read Intro to ActionScript Syntax and Intro to Classes by Helen Triolo at Flash Creations. These pages provide a great overview to ActionScript. They also have many examples to extend your skills as far as you'd like to go. You just need to read the basics on this page, but if you really want to extend your skills beyond this class, consider paying for access to her examples. In this course, you won't have time to master all of the following areas, but you should be able to add some basic interactive elements into your projects. Declare/Assign Comments, Trace Simple Data Types Arrays & Objects Code Structures Operators Beyond Buttons Toggle Controls Drag and Hit Bee Game Dart Shooter Sound Control Easing Slider Components Intro Stop/Replay Movieclips Intro Movieclip Reference Site Structure 1 Slideshow Movieclip Contact Form Scroll Resume Preloader Site Structure 2 Return to the Top
		Components in Flash Components are pre-built pieces that make Flash easier, faster, and more effective. They include User Interface, media, and data components. Keep in mind that many of these component require knowledge of ActionScript to implement. Read Components Learning Guide from Adobe Macromedia. This article highlights the components that come with Flash. Return to the Top
		Adding Interactivity to Flash Projects Once you understand the basics of ActionScript, the options are endless. It's not necessary to memorize code. Instead, use the help options in Flash and the ActionScript objects that are already precoded. Simply modify them to fit your needs. Many websites contain ActionScripts you can copy and use. Let's explore some common interactive applications. Drag and Drop. From puzzles to building snowpeople, there are lots of applications of draggable symbols. Here are some ideas: Drag healthy food into a bag, mouth, table. Drag words into an order, categories, matching picture Drag puzzle pieces Drag tools to perform operation, solve problem, etc. Drag to reveal answers underneath visual Drag letters for a scrabble game, hangman Drag words for magnet poetry, fill-in-blank Drag objects to create a snowperson, dressed person, Christmas tree, Gingerbread house, decorated cookie, pizza Try It! Go to Dress Me Up, Faces Tell Stories, Virtual Pumpkin Patch, Make a Tidepool, and Virtual Snowman to see examples. Notice what happens when the items are dropped. What other applications of this technique can you envision? Let's explore a few cool techniques for creating interactive elements in Flash. These were suggested by students in the Flash class: Button action. The following tutorials help with advanced buttons and adding actions to buttons. - K. Pizarek, Spring 2006 Advanced buttons. Use Movie Clip Button from LearnFlash for advanced button ideas. - P. Slater, Spring 2006 Forms in Flash. There are lots of interesting things you can do with forms in Flash. Try the following tutorials for ideas: Better Forms, Building Forms, and Sending Email with Flash. - M. Gish, Spring 2006 Gaming. Game design is a popular application of Flash. Most of the functionality of games is programmed using ActionScript. Try the following resources: Flash MX ActionScript Bible by Robert Reinhardt and Joey Lott (ebook through IUCAT), Flash MX ActionScript: The Designer's Edge by J. Scott Hamlin and Jennifer S. Hall (ebook through IUCAT) and Flash MX 2004 Games: Art to ActionScript by Nik Lever (ebook through IUCAT). - M. Burkhart, Spring 2006 Interesting Uses for Buttons. There are many ways to use the mouse-over button option besides simply changing the state of the button. For example, mouse-over buttons can be used to create a submenu, and to make a new image appear in the mouse-over state. Dynamic text with buttons is another way to change text by using Actionscript instead of extra keyframes. For ideas, go to Drop-down menu tutorial and Creating movie. clip buttons. - A. Hurford, Spring 2006 Example 1: to mouse-over a menu item and make submenu appear Example 2: To mouse-over a menu item and have a new picture appear Example 3: To mouse-over an item and have dynamic text change as a result Flash Jigsaw Puzzles. Go to Daily Webshot for Flash jigsaws. There are several step-by-step guides for creating your own Flash jigsaw templates: Puzzle Factory, Flashlabs, and Sitepoint. Go to Jigsaw for a sample project. - A. Goben, Spring 2006
		Try It! After reading and completing Chapter 4: Interaction (PDF document) from AIM your Flash Project. Add some interaction to your own project. Return to the Top
		Learn More Buttons & Symbols Learning Flash MX: Buttons, Symbols ActionScript A Beginner's Look at ActionScript by Joey Lott, Jen deHaan, and Peter deHaan. ActionScript.org - great tutorials Macromedia ActionScript from Flash Developer Center Components Components from Flash Developer Center Return to the Top