My reflection - the learning process on the Map exercise

The Map presentation seems like simple and easy to pick up the Flash techniques involved. However, it is not the case. I have spent night after night working on making a copy just exactly the same as the sample even the ways and wordings of it.

Going through the problem solving process on the Map exercise, I have learnt the major functions of Flash particularly the ActionScript function. My Flash application does not have the dialogue box appearing after I select the “tellTarget” command. I have no way to become a copy machine and go through the whole process by following the actions demonstrated in the tutorial of the Map exercise.

I try to find short cut to solve the problem like going back to HKU computer lab and downloading the Flash MX version, the one is used for the Map tutorial. However, the Wizard and the dialogue box do not come out. In order to solve the basic problem, I must go back to the very basic, knowing what the ActionScript is and learning how to use it to help me get my jobs done.

My learning partner gave me some websites for learning Flash. I visited these websites and I found many useful resources. There are many tutorials and examples for beginning and advanced learners to view and learn. (You might want to visit the following website if you find Chinese version is better for you to understand the concepts, however, you need to understand Putonghua.)

http://tech.china.com/zh_cn/netschool/homepage/flash/

There is a tutorial about the core concepts on writing action scripts. That one really helps me. Now I can understand the basic Flash language. With this understanding, I am able to do problem solving during the Flash editing process. Whenever your Flash presentation does not work out as you expect, you need to find out how to solve the problem. It is so frustrated if you don’t have a direction where you are going. But, with the understanding of the Flash language, you know the diagnosis you make will help you solve the problem.

Working on the Flash application, the user needs to be very, very careful on every action. The Flash application does not understand you and does not work for you if you make a very insignificant error. Even though it always tells you what error occurs in which level, which line and which frame in a very exact way, for some occasions, no error is given and you will be in trouble.