Product Description

This guide allows you to learn specific Flash skills step-by-step at your own pace. Choose from among several tutorials to develop the skills that are most appropriate to the Flash projects you are working on at any given time. Each lesson leads you through the workflow for implementing a specific real-world feature or effect in your Flash applications.

InMacromedia Flash 8: A Tutorial Guide, learn how to:
•    Navigate the Flash workspace and use common document types
•    Use the Flash drawing tools and create engaging graphic effects
•    Use ActionScript to add interactivity and custom functionality to your documents
•    Connect your Flash projects to external data sources to create data-driven applications

Powerful development and design tools require thorough and authoritative technical advice and documentation. When it comes to Macromedia Flash, no one is more authoritative than Macromedia’s own development and writing teams. Now their official documentation is available to you in printed book form. As you work, keep this guide by your side for ready access to valuable information on using Flash. We’ve designed it so that it’s easy to annotate as you progress.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #326795 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From the Back Cover
This guide allows you to learn specific Flash skills step-by-step at your own pace. Choose from among several tutorials to develop the skills that are most appropriate to the Flash projects you are working on at any given time. Each lesson leads you through the workflow for implementing a specific real-world feature or effect in your Flash applications.

InMacromedia Flash 8: A Tutorial Guide, learn how to:
•    Navigate the Flash workspace and use common document types
•    Use the Flash drawing tools and create engaging graphic effects
•    Use ActionScript to add interactivity and custom functionality to your documents
•    Connect your Flash projects to external data sources to create data-driven applications

Powerful development and design tools require thorough and authoritative technical advice and documentation. When it comes to Macromedia Flash, no one is more authoritative than Macromedia’s own development and writing teams. Now their official documentation is available to you in printed book form. As you work, keep this guide by your side for ready access to valuable information on using Flash. We’ve designed it so that it’s easy to annotate as you progress.

About the Author
Jay  Armstrong and Jen deHaan are members of the staff of the Instructional Media Development team at Macromedia. The Macromedia Instructional Media Development (IMD) team is a group of technical writers, editors, and production engineers who create the technical documentation for all Macromedia products and technologies. Each product has a team of dedicated writers who document the help systems, feature descriptions, and learning paths that Macromedia customers use. Through their years of insider, hands-on product experience, the IMD team is uniquely qualified to bring you these official Macromedia-branded documentation reference guides.

Customer Reviews

Very clearly written tutorial and perfect for the new user
This book really has beaten my expectations.

I'm new to Flash and having just gotten my Mac and Macromedia Studio 8 (mainly for Fireworks 8) i was keen to give Flash 8 a go too.

The book is expertly written and reads perfectly, taking the 'student' through each step of learning how and why to use Flash 8 and provides them with clear instructions to accompany the tutorials that are included in the software package. Within 25 pages, i had created my first .swf incorporating video and graphics and learnt a little about ActionScript.

The book is perfect. A great step by step guide, clear and concise and each chapter explains the goals of the tasks ahead. It is clearly laid out and easy to read and includes full instructions that even a new Mac user would find simple. It also covers Windows users too.

Superb! I'm really glad that I bought this.

Macromedia Flash 8 - A Tutorial Guide
I'm probably an intermediate level Flash user - I'm moderately happy writing ActionScript, using components and generating streaming video from Flash. I bought this book to fill in gaps in my understanding of the subject and I wasn't disappointed. Although a raw beginner would probably need a little more than this book it's still very good.
My main criticism is that, as you get deeper into Flash, you learn (sometimes painfully) that declaring variables at the start of a document, using strict typing and adopting a standardised way of naming both variables and instance is more than simply a good idea.
Unfortunately this book tends to ignore these conventions - conventions that are drilled into you time and time again in the other volumes of the Macromedia manuals.

Beginners, avoid this complete tat
I am a complete Flash newbie, so bought this book as I like the tutorial approach to learning, and I thought that is must be good as it was published by the developers of the software. How wrong I was. When I unpacked the book, I was struck by what a slim volume it is. It was down hill rapidly from thereon in. For the person completely new to flash, avoid this volume. If you really really need these tutorials, use the Flash help system and save your money for something that will really help you, eg Teach Yourself Flash 8 by Mac Bride or Teach Yourself Flash 8 in 24 Hours by Phillip Kerman.