I've been making an animated button using a MovieClip in Flash using ActionScript 3. The problem I had was making the hand cursor appear over it, firstly at all and then when my button had text in it.

To make a MovieClip behave like a button and use the hand cursor set the following properties for the MovieClip.

clip.buttonMode = true;
clip.useHandCursor = true;

Next, if your MovieClip contains a TextField set the following property for the TextField.

clip.labelText.mouseEnabled = false;

This means that the button underneath deals with the mouse, so the cursor will behave in the way that the button tells it to. In the example in this post, Button 1 has the mouseEnabled set to the default true value and Button 2 sets it to false.

I have an ActionScript Class file linked to the button that does all this to keep my main movie code clean.

This Flickr viewer uses Flash CS3, ActionScript 3 and the Flickr API to display public photos from a selected user's Flickr account. I've created it because I've got a few project ideas where you will need to select a photo from Flickr. I've been impressed with the improved object orientedness of ActionScript 3 and this has let me build this in a way where all the different bits can be re-used very easily.

This has been a nice project to get my head round some of the new features in ActionScript 3. I've been particularly impressed with the new way of loading and using XML. It's so much easier and just makes sense. The event model has also been much improved.

I'm also very impressed with the Flickr API. It's great to be able to take the wealth of content they've got and play about with it. In the future I hope to play about with some other APIs. I love how sites are offering APIs and letting people extend and join up their services. I think the joined up web offers some amazing possibilities.

PaperVision is an open source project to make 3D in Flash much easier than it has been.

I've only had a very quick play, but I was able to create this lovely photo cube very quickly.

It's based on an example on The Flash Blog. I can see a lot of potential for including this in my future flash work. 3D can make things look more impressive, but a sense of space can also make things easier to use.

As part of the regeneration of Holbeck there was a commission to produce art work for the area. Holbeck has a rich history, but many of the buildings are now deserted. I liked the idea that maybe things still lurked in the dark corners of these decrepit buildings.

I wanted to use projectors and burglar alarm sensors to bring the buildings to life as people walked past.

I created this rough flash animation to illustrate my idea, and this formed part of my submission.