What happened to the code reference panel from CS5?

[Terk]

I have been watching a CS5 Flash ActionScript tutorial, but I am using Flash CC. In the tutorial, there is a code reference panel to the left of the actions panel that has a list of all the possible code pieces, and when hovering over any of them, it shows a tooltip describing the code piece. Did they remove this panel in later versions of Flash, and if so, is there any way to bring it back? It would be extremely useful as a tool to learn ActionScript.

The following is a picture to show what I am referring to.

[sinious]

There's a chance you might find it in the exchange but I believe ultimately the packaged documentation is no longer the desired route to obtain help.

If you hit Help->Flash Help you'll be instantly directed online. I think that shows you that they want you to view the most up to date documentation for the product possible.

While the methods/properties/etc are missing from the left menu, you can always contextually see them by default when you type a period next to an objects name. If I make a Sprite and type the name followed by a period I am greeted by a contextually specific list of properties and methods for the object I'm referring to:

If I don't know what the property or method does, I can accept it, select it and hit F1 to be taken directly to the documentation for it:

This shows the emphasis on using the online documentation.

If you haven't already, check out these resources for learning ActionScript:

http://tv.adobe.com/videos/actionscript/

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/actionscript/learning.html

[hangojango]

I must agree with Terk. Adobe has just steepened the learning curve for ActionScript (is that sensible?)

I thought having a cloud subscription (CC) entailed automatic software updates - so if they decided to rewrite parts of the reference list, just do so.

Now, we have to wait for a super slow Adobe reference website to load - instead of having a nice workflow, right there in the Actions Panel. Here is the online reference, it seems:

Packages - Adobe ActionScript® 3 (AS3) API Reference

And it appears you can download the complete reference in a 66MB zip file from here: ActionScript reference and documentation | Adobe Developer Connection

These may also be useful - but if you're like me, you're probably just looking for a convenient reminder of what's available in general - not another lesson or specific request for help:

Adobe Flash Platform *                 ActionScript 3.0 Developer’s Guide

Adobe Flash Platform *                 Learning ActionScript 3.0

https://tv.adobe.com/show/actionscript-11-with-doug-winnie/

Learning ActionScript 3 | Adobe Developer Connection

[Amy Blankenship]

Adobe's just jumping on the bandwagon of what other companies like Microsoft have been doing for the past few years. The thing is, you don't have any choice but to have a CC subscription if you want the latest versions of products like Photoshop that actually are functional in the CC versions. Adobe knows this, so it's going to just do what is easiest/most cost-effective for it rather than what you want it to do. The good news is CS5 still works, so if you don't like the way later versions of the software work and you still have the old versions, use them.

Note that if you don't still have CS5, you can download CS6. I'm not sure if CS6 had this panel or not--it's never been anything I found useful so I never open it.

[sinious]

Yep CS6 still has the panel:

As Amy said, most other companies know the value of keeping documentation fresh online. Anyone still dialing up over a modem? The internet is as expected on your system as much as well, a keyboard.

As whathehangojango pointed out the LiveDocs can be downloaded and then are extremely fast and easy to use. Consider re-downloading them any time you see a point release of AIR / Flash Player for updates.

[Amy Blankenship]

I'm not sure the reason they keep the docs online is to keep it "fresh." For example, they don't seem to roll in comments that were left on previous versions of the docs that really help to clarify or even correct what's said in the docs. It seems to me it's mainly a cost-cutting measure.

FWIW, the best documentation ever was Authorware 4 c. 1997. It was context-sensitive and fast and seemed almost psychic in how it showed you exactly what you needed to see when you needed to see it. But Authorware was eLearning software, so that might have something to do with it.

[sinious]

That's exactly what I mean. It's cheaper to roll out online docs then to send out a product update every time documentation is corrected. Centralized deployment is just better.

I believe the reason you no longer see many of those comments is the issues they reveal are fixed. If the comment still existed after, they would no longer make sense. I'd hate to see the docs littered with a bunch of comments that are now irrelevant having to fight between docs and comments for truth.

While I love that a huge portion of the ActionScript docs have example code, much the reason I love PHP docs, my favorite has always been good ole' StackOverflow.

[Amy Blankenship]

I've seen instances where they have fixed things I've called out in comments (and sometimes directly to people at Adobe) and others where they haven't. It's a problem where they haven't fixed the issue that's being clarified/corrected, but they've stripped out the comment that would help later users figure out what's wrong.

[sinious]

I've seen the same but the issue being pointed out was something that was rather extremely rare or hard/impossible to fix. Not so long ago it was pretty processor intensive to play HD video back using the standard NetStream class. Many people commented that it just didn't work on their GPU, bogged terribly, etc. There was nothing to do in some instances (underpowered) or not worth fixing an extremely minority subset of the GPU market. Thus the comment was removed, even if it was useful to know a certain GPU had issues.