Battle of the Script



Still thinking that Flash’s Actionscript language is piffle? I’ve been trying to convince Director developers for five years that they can’t ignore the ever-increasing capabilities of AS (while simultaneously promulgating Director to Flash users). Even though many people have recognized the utility of Flash, snarky comments about Actionscript’s capabilities abound. I don’t really understand it myself.

As an example of the type of thing that’s possible in Flash these days, I point you to the 2006 Battle of the Script at ActionScript.com. The contest (with a grand prize of $500 and a number of books) is based around the use of an open source library for text animation called TextScript (developed by Satori Canton). Come up with the coolest effect and win one of the prizes.

My challenge — with no prize attached — is to try doing some of the demonstrated effects in Lingo. In part, that’s made difficult by Director’s architecture, but I think that it’s obvious that ActionScript’s capabilities are definitely in the ring.