# cocos2d Programming Guide

The cocos2d Programming Guide provides in-depth documentation for writing applications that use cocos2d. Many topics described here reference the cocos2d API reference, provided separately.

If this is your first time reading about cocos2d, we suggest you start at Writing a cocos2d application.

Sections

- Introduction
- Installation
- Writing a cocos2d application
- Basic Concepts
- Actions, Transformations and Effects
- Scenes & Transitions
- Tiled maps
- CocosNodes
- Built-in Python Interpreter
- Default Handlers
- Skeletal Animations

Table of contents

- Introduction
- Installation
- Writing a cocos2d application
  - Hello, World
  - Hello Actions
  - Handling Events
  - Where to next?
- Basic Concepts
  - Scenes
  - Director
  - Layers
  - Sprites
  - Events
    - The pyglet event framework in a pinch
    - Cocos and events
- Actions, Transformations and Effects
  - Actions
  - Basic actions
  - Effects
    - How they work
    - 3D actions
    - Index of grid effects
    - Examples
  - Composition
  - Modifiers
  - Special Actions
  - Creating your own actions
    - Basic Internals
    - Instant Actions
    - Interval Actions
    - Grid Actions
- Scenes & Transitions
  - Using Director's API
  - Transitions
- Tiled maps
  - Hexagonal maps
  - Rect maps
- CocosNodes
  - Built-in cocosnode objects
    - CocosNode
    - Scene
    - Layer
    - ScrollingManager
    - ScrollableLayer
    - Sprite
    - Labels
    - ColorLayer
    - Menu
    - MenuItem
  - Creating your own objects
- Built-in Python Interpreter
- Default Handlers
- Skeletal Animations
  - Creating Skeletons and skins
    - The skeleton file
    - The skin file
    - The skeleton editor
  - Animations
    - The animator editor
    - Playing animations