I had an idea I’d do Captivate tutorials on every class in the Flash MX 2004 framework. I had gotten a lot of praise for my past component tutorials, and many people have emailed me constantly to do more.
…the problem is, there are a LOT of classes in there, each with their own intracacies. Describing each would take a book of documentation (which Flash MX 2004 now has). Not to mention the fact, I’ll have to do it again in Januray of 2006 for the 8ball framework (assuming there is one) since I figure if one does in fact come out later this year, that’ll be how long I need to feel confident in my ability to describe it to others effectively.
However, a quick run-down, verbally spoken with some of the functions shown while spoken too, helps me understand what is going on under the covers. When I read the classes to learn them, say mx.managers.DepthManager for instance, I’ll read some of the properties and functions aloud to myself to garner a better understanding of what it’s doing, and how it plays with the rest of the framework.
In practice, this UIObject tutorial is taking way to long to complete. I did these last Sunday night, and just now realized I’m not even 25% of the way done with the class. I guess I’m really trying to guage what people want to know about the framework, without sacrificing important details.
For example, I think a complete rundown of the entire framework is needed, not just certain classes. I know that’s a little non-pragmatic, but the framework has a lot of tightly, inter-woven functionality, and it’s important to understand those connections to get the most out of the framework AND to keep yourself out of trouble when using it.
So, doing Captivate tutorials for each class will not work, I don’t have the time to do them all. I’m not opposed to a Podcast, but I really think the lack of visually showing the class will sacrifice a lot the understanding and retention.
Maybe talking about each class in 2 minutes or less? Curious what the community thinks is best.
er…. might want to read over your EULA before doing much more with that.
I don’t understand, which part and why?
I just don’t think MM would want you to be republishing so much source code. It might be cool, though. Just check the EULA.
MM also blatantly support SWF decompilers :-)
I wouldn’t worry too much Jesse.
Keep going. Not any written docs will ever match the amount of info I get out of your Captivates – absolutely brilliant.
Stefan
Bline express
http://www.blinex.com || BLDoc
has a killer tool for creating as Documentation. It really helps to document the mx folder with that. I tried it , works great.
However I would wish for macromedia to publish their internally used doc parser. They did use one didnt they, or whats all that help id stuff for ? Anyway I definitely agree with Stefan, since you can read the source anyway you cant get it explained also , right? – keep going PLEASE :)