Product Description

If you¿re ready to begin integrating video, text, audio, and graphics into dynamic, interactive Web sites using Macromedia¿s Flash MX 2004, this is the place to start. As the official Macromedia guide to its motion-graphics and animation powerhouse, this volume uses a series of hands-on projects to provide a firm foundation in every aspect of Flash MX 2004 use: from graphics, animation, video, and text to ActionScript fundamentals and dynamic data integration. Simple step-by-step instructions peppered with plenty of visuals and a CD that includes lesson files and a trial version of Flash MX 2004 leave you with a solid understanding of basic Flash development and design. In the process you¿ll learn about all that¿s new in Flash MX 2004¿from its redesigned interface to its improved scripting language, better text tools, native support for PDF and EPS formats, first-ever third-party extensions, and more. You¿ll even learn how to build movies that integrate with dynamic data, stream video, and include forms that ask for user input.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #460085 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 472 pages

From the Back Cover

If you¿re ready to begin integrating video, text, audio, and graphics into dynamic, interactive Web sites using Macromedia¿s Flash MX 2004, this is the place to start. As the official Macromedia guide to its motion-graphics and animation powerhouse, this volume uses a series of hands-on projects to provide a firm foundation in every aspect of Flash MX 2004 use: from graphics, animation, video, and text to ActionScript fundamentals and dynamic data integration. Simple step-by-step instructions peppered with plenty of visuals and a CD that includes lesson files and a trial version of Flash MX 2004 leave you with a solid understanding of basic Flash development and design. In the process you¿ll learn about all that¿s new in Flash MX 2004¿from its redesigned interface to its improved scripting language, better text tools, native support for PDF and EPS formats, first-ever third-party extensions, and more. You¿ll even learn how to build movies that integrate with dynamic data, stream video, and include forms that ask for user input.

About the Author

Jen deHaan is a freelance web designer/developer based in Calgary, Alberta. She has been involved in writing, contributing to or editing many computer books on Macromedia Flash, ActionScript, digital video, and ColdFusion. She has co-authored three books on ActionScript, is coauthor of the ColdFusion Developer's Handbook (Sybex), and the soon to be published Dreamweaver MX: ColdFusion Web Development.

Customer Reviews

save your money
I'm a competent programmer, but completely new to Flash. This book was incredibly frustrating.
* The whole premise of working towards a completed Bookstore application didn't work.
* The lessons aren't logically structured - the things you do in the first chapters don't get completed until lessons half the book later - so most of the time you aren't sure what you have done or whether it works or not.
* Some of the example code didn't work.

I've got the TFS book on Actionscript staring at me from the bookshelf, and i'm wondering whether to even open it....

Convoluted project slows learning
This book follows the design of an entire website using Flash. I would question the wisdom of this approach because other technologies are much more suitable for site development. Most developers like myself are looking for a book that will help them understand animated graphics. Because the author wants to create all the elements for this site using Flash, many of the examples are more complicated than they should be, and the learning process takes much longer than it should. By page 140 I had decided to abandon the project and ordered a different title.

Worst Ever
This is the worst book ever published for Flash. I'm a student and I bought this book only to regret it. This book only shows you how to create a site that has been "ideally" created. One of those blue-peter style "heres one I made earlier" type things. When you start to want to do things more in your own style, everything goes wrong. I suggest something more in-depth like the Demystified series.