Product Description

Macromedia Director MX is the latest version of its flagship multimedia authoring environment. Used for building rich, interactive content and applications deployed on CD/DVD-ROM, kiosks, and the Web via Macromedia Shockwave Player, the software will release in December for $1,199 ($399 for users upgrading from versions 8.0 or 8.5). More than 335 million Web users have already installed Macromedia Shockwave Player, which will continue to support and play Macromedia Director MX projects. New Macromedia Director MX product features include: seamless integration with the Macromedia Flash MX product family, the streamlined Macromedia MX user interface, Mac OS X support, and major new workflow efficiencies. For more information, go to www.macromedia.com/go/director/. Based on the curriculum developed and tested for use by Macromedia's authorized trainers, Macromedia Director MX and Lingo: Training from the Source provides a series of project-based, hands-on tutorials designed to introduce readers at their own pace to all the key concepts and features of this latest release. Topics include: animation, sound, video (including allowing the user to play video using interactive controls), Lingo programming, debugging movies, creating projectors for delivering content on CDs, creating Shockwave content for the Internet, and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #388431 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 920 pages

About the Author

Phil Gross is the founder of Mel Co., a San Francisco Bay Area consulting firm that offers programming and instructional design support. He has written books and training materials on such topics as UNIX, assembly language, and OS/2, and he wrote the Macromedia Press/Peachpit Press best-seller Director and Lingo Authorized for version 7 and 8 of Director.

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Tutorial
I have recently had to get involved with creating material in Director MX and although familiar with other graphics software, I had never used Director before. For anyone starting from scratch, I can't recommend this book highly enough, written against a background of classroom based training experience, it shows in the way it is paced and the various elements re-inforced along the way without having to thumb back to Chapter 2 etc.

Having taught myself many other programmes from books, very special praise for the fact that every example worked, if it didn't, I had made a typo not because they were slack in the editing. For others like myself who have been through this self teach process before, all too often in other books, examples don't work and there are no explanations as to why.

As with any major programme where it can deliver amazing and complex results in terms of output, no one book can cover everything. If you really want to push Director in 3D etc, you just have to "Learn the Lingo", so I'm now on to other books to develop my skills but this one, was a great start that laid down solid foundations.

Buy only if u want to become familiar with the gui
This is a book which is designed for the complete novice user who wants to become familiar with using the gui. Most of the stuff you can learn by just playing around with the interface. if you want to learn about the director and lingo script then buy a more lingo script orientated book. you will automatically become alot more aware of the interface by learing the script.

Would not recommend this book to university students at all who are learning lingo.

It does it's job and does it well
This book helped me to understand the principles of using Lingo to the point where I could go it alone (with the help from an essential Lingo dictionary). I am now very familiar with Lingo, thanks to this book.

It covers every aspect of Director MX (including using 3D which is on the included CD-ROM) and establishes the types of supported media (essentially almost any type, almost any format)and what it can do with these. It explains the types of scripts used and the methods in which they are implemented. To put it simply, this book shows you exactly what Director MX is capable of and is faultless in it's examples, which always work!
The 'training from the source series' is published by Macromedia Press, so you should expect them to be good ambassadors for the software and promote it's full capabilities (which this book certainly does well).

For a complete beginner this book is essential reading. For an intermediate user, maybe not essential but I still benefit from this book from time-to-time. It often provides a good quick reference.

Synopsis
If you are already aptly versed in Lingo then this book may not have anything to offer. If you are just starting out with Director or have been using Director for a while but have avoided using Lingo, then this book will provide the courage you need to approach the task.