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By default, the Flex image component does not enable smoothing on scaled images, which makes them appear jagged.  Ben Longoria has written a great SmoothImage class that overrides the image component and sets smoothing to true.  I needed a bit more functionality out of it, so I have extended it a bit further.  I wanted:

• Smart resizing which scales the image only if it won't fit in the application bounds
• Drop shadow on the image
• Centered preloader that displays while image is loading

I have written an updated class that expands upon the original SmoothImage, and includes these new features.


View the Example

View Source






Here is SmoothImageLoader.as

With the dawn of AS3, design patterns are beginning to achieve popularity in ActionScript development.  I am compiling a list of AS3 examples, which there are surprisingly few of online.  It can be just as easy though to look at C# and Java examples on wikipedia, but it's still nice to see things in ActionScript.  Also, check out books  listed below.  I use them for reference myself.

Creational:

• Singleton
• Factory
• Builder

Structural:

• Composite
• Flyweight
• Decorator (PDF)

Books:

• Advanced ActionScript 3 with Design Patterns (Paperback)
• ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns: Object Oriented Programming Techniques
• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

This is my complete listing of valuable resources for flash developers.  These projects have been undertaken by talented people who have invented the wheel that people like you and I don't have to.  Please consider donating / supporting these projects, especially if you intend to use them commercially.

3D engines:
Papervision3D -  The most popular 3D engine. Easy to implement, amazingly powerful.
http://blog.papervision3d.org/

Away3d - branch of Papervision3D focusing on advanced rendering and materials
http://www.away3d.com/

Sandy - Great engine for small games. Sandy was the original 3D engine, and is still quite an ambitious project.
http://osflash.org/sandy

Physics:
APE (Actionscript Physics Engine) - While still in early development, this is a great framework for simulating 2D physics in flash. 
http://www.cove.org/ape/index.htm

Animation:
Tweener - This is the AS3 port of mcTween, and it is fantastic.  It has excellent event handling, and support for a lot more parameters than typically necessary.
http://code.google.com/p/tweener/

Audio:
Popforge - This is a library built for controlling audio playback in AS3.
http://code.google.com/p/popforge/

Image Editing:
Imageprocessing Library (Flex Only at the moment) - Great library for doing advanced image transformations and adjustments.
http://blog.je2050.de/imageprocessing-library/

Data / Remoting:
Amfphp -  An extremely fast way to work with external data by communicating with PHP files through ActionScript Message Format.  It is a fast versatile way to provide mySQL data interaction for your flash / flex apps.
http://www.amfphp.org/

Mashup Libraries
These are libraries that allow integration of data from various web sites with flash applications
Flickr - http://code.google.com/p/as3flickrlib/
YouTube - http://code.google.com/p/as3youtubelib/
Mappr - http://code.google.com/p/as3mapprlib/
Facebook - http://code.google.com/p/facebook-actionscript-api/
Yahoo - http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/astra-webapis/
Ebay - http://code.google.com/p/as3ebaylib/
Amazon Web Services - http://code.google.com/p/as3awss3lib/
Odeo - http://code.google.com/p/as3odeolib/
LastFM - http://code.google.com/p/lastfm-as3/
Atom / RSS Syndication - http://code.google.com/p/as3syndicationlib/

For more open source projects, visit these sites:
http://osflash.org/projects
http://code.google.com/#q=actionscript