AS2 vs AS3

[Guest]

Hi,

I was just wondering in what format do people usually publish in: AS2 or AS3? Since there seems to be more widgets in AS2, do people actually publish in AS3?

I'm investigating creating Widgets and I was planning to do it in AS3 but ... is it the right choice?

What are you publishing in?

Whyves

[Lilybiri]

Hello,

It is certainly a good idea to do the programming in AS3. Sooner or later AS2 will have to make place for AS3. Because AS2 has been around much longer than AS2 you'll probably find more stuff, but AS3 is the future.

Hope this helps,

Lilybiri

[Guest]

Thanks for the answer!

That's exactly what I'm thinking too but I was wandering what people were usually using. For me, AS3 should be the way to go but I noticed that people that were using AS2 before find it more difficult to migrate to AS3 and thus stay with AS2 longer. Just didn't want to create a Widget that will not be used.

Whyves

[Lilybiri]

Some day they will be forced to migrate, I believe. It is up to you: if you are willing to recreate the widgets in AS3 later on, go ahead with AS2. Difficult to consult, just gave my 'user' opinion. Just started learning AS, but of course did so with AS3.

Lilybiri

[Guest]

Of course, when you start from scratch, it would not be wise to start from AS2. AS3 is so much more!

I guess if people are creating AS3 Widgets then it will help forcing the migration I assume . So I will do it in AS3.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

While I agree with what Lilybiri is saying, I'll add my own thoughts here.

Personally, I tend to use the defaults for many things with Captivate. And one of the defaults is that it defaults to AS2 setting. The only time I might consider using AS3 would be if someone were to offer something I needed to use that only was available in AS3. Then I would change. But I haven't encountered that situation so far.

So sure, I'm keeping an eye to the future as far as AS3 goes, but it doesn't really factor into the things I do daily. AS2 setting is default and seems to work fine. There are some nuances between the two as far as Captivate goes that you might consider.

For example, one of them is that if settings are AS2 and you are using variables in captions, you see a momentary flash of the variable before the value actually appears. I believe that goes away and is corrected if you switch to AS3.

Additionally, I presently am awfully Flash and AS ignorant. So if I were to finally begin learning the mysteries of ActionScript, I might be a lot more concerned.

Cheers... Rick

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[brightonjon-P8miI4]

You also need to consider your target audience.

AS3 requires Flash Player 9 or later.

So if you're creating content for say a corporate audience with locked down PCs that can't upgrade their Flash player, AS2 is more likely to be compatible.

[Guest]

Yes that's true and I know of some companies that do that. However, a year ago it might have been more likely the case but with the proliferation of sites requiring AS3, I believe companies will have to upgrate to at least Flash Player 9.

I wonder how much I will cut myself off by just using AS3. The sound thing would be to develop in both languages but I just don't feel like doing the job twice.