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Flash Tools for Developers: Function Grapher - Outline of the Function Grapher Guide

Author(s): 
Doug Ensley, Barbara Kaskosz

The following outline describes what can be accomplished by following the Function Grapher guide after downloading the source files to your machine with Flash MX 2004 or Flash 8 installed.

  1. Getting started. Download and unzip the relevant files including the documented source code and the detailed pdf file with instructions for customization.
  2. Elements of the Grapher's fla file. An overview of the structure of the source code and some of the basic terminology for the Flash authoring system.
  3. Elements on Stage: Properties and Instance Names. A tour of the objects on the Grapher stage along with an explanation of how their basic properties like size, color and location can be modified.
  4. Modifying the Script: Changing Appearance. In this section, we will show how to customize the appearance and the properties of the Grapher through simple modifications of the script.
  5. Modifying the Script: Resizing and Repositioning. Changing the size of the grapher is done through a modification of the script while corresponding changes to the elements of the stage must be done using the objects' properties.  This section discusses how to make these modifications in a consistent manner.
  6. Modifying the Script: Changing Functionality. In this section, you will learn how to modify our basic template for a different learning objective. You will create an application in which a user enters only one function. The function is graphed when the GRAPH button is clicked. Then, when a button df/dx (which you will create) is clicked, the graph of the derivative of the function is displayed.
  7. The Description of Custom Classes.  This section gives a technical description of the five custom classes contained within the package edu.uriship.math.fungraph. We include it here for completeness.
  8. Creating New Object on Stage. This section provies a detailed description of how to create buttons, movie clips, and text fields from scratch and how to edit them is a bit beyond this little guide. We refer the reader to one of the books listed in the next section. The purpose of this section is to show that the process is really easy.

Doug Ensley, Barbara Kaskosz, "Flash Tools for Developers: Function Grapher - Outline of the Function Grapher Guide," Convergence (May 2006)