Important Things to Remember

ActionScript is case sensitive: The first important thing to remember as you work with ActionScript is that it is case sensitive. That means that if the instructions say to type gotoAndPlay(2); it must be all lower case letter except for the 'A' and 'P'. If you type GOTOANDPLAY(2); or any other combination of upper and lower case letters, It will not work.

Punctuation is Important: Every statement in ActionScript ends with a semi-colon ; Every block of code is surrounded by curly braces { } ActionScript also uses parenthesis ( ), brackets [ ] and other punctuation. All punctuation must be copied exactly.

ActionScript uses parenthesis (), braces {}, and brackets []. They are not interchangeable! Every brace { must have a matching }. The same is true of parenthesis: ( ) and brackets [ ].

You need Names: If you want to refer to a movie clip, activate a button, or display text, you must be able to call it by a name. You give it a name in the properties window. The name of a movie clip, or anything else must follow these rules:

1. If cannot have any spaces!
2. It must start with a letter, then it can have more letters and digits or an underscore. A name can not have any other special characters.
3. The name must be unique, if you name a MovieClip star, then the name star can not be used to name anything else.
4. Good names usually use what is sometimes called "camel case": it starts with a lower case letter and then capitalizes each word in the name: badDude or bigBug. Picking good descriptive names and being consistent in how you name things will make your work easier later.

INDEX, What is ActionScript, Important Things to Remember, Naming Movie Clips, Stop!, Live demo of the ball stop movie, Stop Again!, Play!, Self Study Questions
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Important Things to Remember