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I first started learning how to use Flash back in the year 2000, how about you? When did you start using Flash?

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In my previous article explaining How to Draw an Arc with ActionScript a few readers asked how to simulate the swing of a pendulum or the swaying motion of a falling leaf. Hopefully this tutorial will add a little insight into that process. The technique I’ll be using won’t mimic the effects of gravity but will be more similar to the metered swing of a clock’s pendulum or a large carnival ride.

Observations: Before we start writing any code, let’s make a few general observations. If you were to swing a pendulum from right to left, you could note the following:

1. Once the pendulum is dropped or released, it begins to pick up speed as it approaches the bottom of its arc. This gradual acceleration is similar to “Easing In”.
2. Once the pendulum passes the bottom of its arc, it begins to swing upward and consequently slows down which is similar to “Easing Out”.
3. Once the pendulum reaches the top of its arc on the left, it begins to swing backwards from left to right. The swing from left to right is a mirror image of the previous swing from right to left.

Conventions: With those observations in mind we can start …
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In a previous article about PixelWit.com’s RSS feed list I mentioned the feed-readers BlogLines and GoogleReader but I failed to mention that I don’t use either of them due to concerns regarding privacy issues. If you’re industrious enough to actually read Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service you’ll notice a few key points.

1. They have the right to edit content.
2. They watch what you do.
3. They record what you do.
4. They share what you do.

How would you feel if you went to a public library to read about a topic and as soon as you entered the building the librarian started following you around with a pen and paper, constantly looking over your shoulder, crossing out all the naughty bits before you read them …
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I recently ran into a nasty “little” bug in Flash that happened to eat up a “big” chunk of my time. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about this particular bug since the conditions which cause it would seem fairly common.

Let’s say you’re using an onEnterFrame event to count frames as they pass with code like this:

Now let’s suppose we want to rotate an arrow 1 degree every time a frame passes. We could write code like the following: …
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