How do you make a flash player from scratch? Any way to do it with just codes?

Question

I want to make a music flash player. And i have quite a bit to learn. I would like to know if their is a way i could create my own player from complete nothing only using codes. If theirs a tutorial site or your personal instruction, that would help. Ive been using XSPF, and XML player, and ive found pre-made skins for them, but how would i create my own? Where would i even start?? I dont have any money for no extra programs for changing crazy file extensions. So is their a way around it? (Like from what im told with changing skin files with .fla & player functions .as i need a flash authoring software , any way without the software it would be possible? or know of free software that would work? Not trial)...
Simply put. How do i create my own music flashplayer?
How would i create my own personal skin for XSPF or XML??(thats really what i want to know if not anything else for now)..
I need the start to finish. But i will be happy with any information you can fill me in on. Thanks.

Answer 1

If you want to make your own Flash player, you have to have Flash. You can download a 30-day demo version from http://www.adobe.com/flash. You must have the authoring environment, just like you have to have Word to make Word files and Excel to make Excel files. There's no way around it, and no one makes a free version of the Flash authoring environment because it is proprietary software owned by Adobe. There are other programs that output SWF files (that is an open format), which is what the Flash environment publishes, but nothing sophisticated enough to create a music player.

Once you have Flash, you need to learn programming basics. A music player is not the most complex piece of software in the world, but it is software. You will probably need to get a book on ActionScript, which is the programming language Flash uses. You need to have at least a basic grasp of the programming environment, at the very least, to avoid breaking the player when you try to change the appearance.

If someone else has already made a player that supports XML skinning (though I am not aware of one), then you should be able to create your own skin with Notepad or any other text editor - you just need to learn the skin codes that the program understands. XML is a plain-text format - the same as a txt file, but with an xml extension. (Hint: you don't need a program to change file extensions - Windows does this on its own).