I'm looking for a way to really learn it starting with the basics.

[olucas]

Hello,
I have been using Flash for several years now but I need to get serious about learning actionscript. I have done quite a bit with it already from reading tutorials and figuring out script etc. but the problem is that I don't really understand what it all means and I would not be able to just write out the actionscript without refering to the tutorials or other script.

I'm going to be starting a massive interactive AV project and I need to learn the right way to program this. As far as I know I need to learn MVC and OOP. The project that I am going to be doing will be a set of over 10 different interactive AV presentations that someone could choose from. And in these they will display pictures or videos or sound or be otherwise interactive. This will be on a bunch of computers over a network...

I'm looking for a way to really learn it starting with the basics. Do you know of a very good book that explains what each of the different things mean with examples or such so I can get a real understanding of it? How did you learn it? I've bought several books but they are over my head:
Understanding Macromedia Flash 8 Actionscript 2 by Andrew Rapo and Alex Michael
Essential Actionscript 2.0 by Colin Moock
Foundation Actionscript 3.0 Animation - Making Things Move! by Keith Peters

Is the best way to just read it from a book or is there a better way? The problem I have in reading it from a books is that I have a lack of examples and so get lost and don't know how it all goes together.

Hopefully this post communicates! If you don't understand me or need more data from me pls let me know.
Oh yeah, and I currently have Macromedia Flash 8 but plan on upgrading soon to the latest one. I'm thinking I should learn AS3

Thanks for any direction!

[T24]

I learned a lot from lynda.com (http://www.lynda.com/). In particular, their videos - which I think is a lot better than reading.

There are also some other tutorial websites I like:
http://asgamer.com/tutorials
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash/index.htm#ActionScript_Basics
http://tutorials.flashmymind.com/
http://gotoandlearn.com/

[gangstareef]

I'll second the T24's rec of the tutorials on asgamer and gotoandlearn... I've worked through some from both sites and found them very valuable...

As for the books, are you just reading the book, or are you downloading the example files and working with them as you read? And hacking around in the example code to see how various changes produce different output? FWIW, I learned a ton using the Keith Peters book this way.

Another book you might want to check out given your project is Flash Video for Professionals: Expert Techniques for Integrating Video on the Web by Lisa Larson and Renee Constantini. It contains a lot of material on MVC... It was published in mid-2007, so its examples are in both AS2 and AS3.

[raikado]

depands on what you want to do. if you want to create games in actionscript 2.0 i think this is a perfect book "Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Programming".
flash mx 2004 uses action script 2.0 so it is good for flash 8 too.

[Livi17]

This book helped me a lot:

Flash MX 2004 actionscript / training from the source (http://www.amazon.com/Macromedia-Flash-MX-2004-ActionScript/dp/0321213432)

by Derek Franklin / Jobe makar


Might be a bit dated now, but could also help you learn the basics. Helpful if you ever work anywhere where there is a legacy application and you need to work in old code.