Product Description

If Flash 4 can do it, you can do it too… Whether you're a Flash beginner or an old hand, this is the one guide you need to unleash the full potential of this state–of–the–art Web animation software. Packed with examples and illustrations — including eight pages in full color — as well as expert tutorials from animations pros, the Flash 4 Bible covers everything from creating graphics and building interactive effects to using Flash with other applications and deploying Flash animations on the Web. It's all you need to discover the secrets of great Flash animation — and take any Web site to the next level! Inside, you'll find complete coverage of Flash 4

• Create streaming animation and moving logos for any Web site
• Build pop–up menus and rollover buttons with ease
• Explore Flash drawing tools, animation controls, and file format support
• Use Flash with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, FreeHand, Illustrator, Premiere, and other design software
• Discover useful techniques such as in–betweening and onion–skinning
• Take advantage of JavaScript interactivity to make Flash movies
• Create standalone Flash projectors for floppy–disk distribution

Add–one, plug–ins, and more on CD–ROM

• Trial software, including Director 7, Dreamweaver 2, Fireworks 2, Flash 4, and Freehand 8
• Time–saving templates
• Examples from the book

Shareware programs are fully functional, free trial versions of copyrighted programs. If you like particular programs, register with their authors for a nominal fee and receive licenses, enhanced versions, and technical support. Freeware programs are free, copyrighted games, applications, and utilities. You can copy them to as many PCs as you like—free—but they have no technical support. www.idgbooks.com System Requirements: Mac: Power PC at 100MHz or greater, 32MB RAM, System 7.6.1 or later. PC: Pentium PC at 133MHz or greater, 32MB RAM, Windows 95, 98, or NT 4

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #961636 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-11
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 611 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It is a challenge to write a book that will be helpful for a wide audience without weakening its effectiveness for any one group. Flash 4 Bible rises to the challenge, providing a clear and thorough introduction to Flash 4 for beginners as well as a comprehensive guide to the application's more complex features, like ActionScripting, for intermediate and advanced users. No one gets short-changed here.

Although readers can reference the book in any order (the index makes troubleshooting very easy), each chapter can successfully serve as a tutorial. The first third of the book maps the user interface and introduces the tools for creating animations and working with sounds. The chapter on ActionScripts is straightforward; as in the rest of the book, topics are subdivided into logical and easily comprehended chunks. Charts help organise operators and properties.

Since, for most Web developers, Flash is just one application within the workflow, the authors spend considerable time on "real life" situations where it is used with Photoshop, QuickTime 4 or Director. The last chapters cover distributing the Flash movie, either within a Web page, as a QuickTime movie, or as a standalone.

Along the way, sample files on the CD-ROM illustrate numerous tools and procedures while expert tutorials feature more detailed projects by leading Flash experts, such as "Sending a Form to an E-mail CGI Script". The uncluttered writing style of the book pairs well with the equally clear and well-captioned screen shots.

As Flash is a complicated application, the book's simple layout and non-jokey text tend to quickly diminish reader confusion. The book even anticipates common questions in sidebar Notes and Tips. By focusing on step-by-step teaching of Flash 4, this manual may succeed where others have failed. And over 600 pages of small steps can take you pretty far. --Angelynn Grant, amazon.com

Topics covered: A comprehensive manual to using Flash 4, including an introduction to the interface and tools, how to create graphics within Flash and how to import them, using sound, creating animations, using ActionScripts, working in tandem with other applications and distributing finished movies. CD-ROM includes sample files to illustrate points and accompany tutorials, as well as demo versions of Flash and other related applications.

From the Back Cover
If Flash 4 can do it, you can do it too… Whether you're a Flash beginner or an old hand, this is the one guide you need to unleash the full potential of this state–of–the–art Web animation software. Packed with examples and illustrations — including eight pages in full color — as well as expert tutorials from animations pros, the Flash 4 Bible covers everything from creating graphics and building interactive effects to using Flash with other applications and deploying Flash animations on the Web. It's all you need to discover the secrets of great Flash animation — and take any Web site to the next level! Inside, you'll find complete coverage of Flash 4

• Create streaming animation and moving logos for any Web site
• Build pop–up menus and rollover buttons with ease
• Explore Flash drawing tools, animation controls, and file format support
• Use Flash with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, FreeHand, Illustrator, Premiere, and other design software
• Discover useful techniques such as in–betweening and onion–skinning
• Take advantage of JavaScript interactivity to make Flash movies
• Create standalone Flash projectors for floppy–disk distribution

Add–one, plug–ins, and more on CD–ROM

• Trial software, including Director 7, Dreamweaver 2, Fireworks 2, Flash 4, and Freehand 8
• Time–saving templates
• Examples from the book

Shareware programs are fully functional, free trial versions of copyrighted programs. If you like particular programs, register with their authors for a nominal fee and receive licenses, enhanced versions, and technical support. Freeware programs are free, copyrighted games, applications, and utilities. You can copy them to as many PCs as you like—free—but they have no technical support. www.idgbooks.com System Requirements: Mac: Power PC at 100MHz or greater, 32MB RAM, System 7.6.1 or later. PC: Pentium PC at 133MHz or greater, 32MB RAM, Windows 95, 98, or NT 4

About the Author
About the Authors Robert Reinhardt has developed multimedia courses for educational facilities in Canada and the United States, delivered conference seminars on Web design, and served as technical editor for several Photoshop and Web books. With a degree in photographic arts, Robert takes a holistic approach to computer applications for the creation of provocative multimedia. Recently, he created installation and digital art for the Warner Bros. feature film Gossip. Now based in Los Angeles, he continues his work through "The Makers" (www.theMakers.com) as a multimedia artist, programmer, and instructor with his partner Snow and his creatively inclined dog, Stella. Jon Warren Lentz is a graduate of the Classical Studies program at UCSC, and a freelance artist and author. He is the lead co–author of a popular Web design book, , co–authored with Lynda Weinman. He's also an associate editor and columnist for EFX Art and Design magazine, formerly known as Mac Art & Design. Prior to entering the photodigital frontier, Lentz achieved notice as a sculptor working with sand–carved glass — a process that he helped to define as a fine art medium. Jon's images have been featured in the 1997 Graphis Poster Annual, Mac Art & Design magazine (Sweden), IdN — the International Designer's Network magazine (Hong Kong), and other magazines. In July 1998, Shutterbug magazine explored connections between his fine art abstractions and commercial works. His work may be viewed online at www.uncom.com. Jon has lectured on digital art, design, and technology at many venues, including the Maine Photographic Workshops, and the Thunder Lizard Photoshop Conference. In 1998, Jon was the visiting artist at Bradford College in Bradford, Massachusetts. In 1999, he joined the faculty at Palomar College, where he now teaches Photoshop, Flash, and Web design. Jon's personal interests are board surfing, photography, fine art, and the study of classical Latin and Greek poetry. He lives with his wife and son in Carlsbad, a beach community near San Diego, California. Contributors and Technical Editors Justin Jamieson (justin@mediumLarge.com) started using his first computer when he was eight years old. Years later, after studying design and cinematography, he combined his training with his computing knowledge to co–found mediumLarge (www.mediumLarge.com), a new media design firm in Toronto. In 1997, while developing a Web site for a local Toronto rap group, Justin began his research into the use of sound on the Internet and there's been no turning back. He recently began an online record company for unsigned Canadian acts that will distribute CDs and MP3s to listeners around the world. One of the first true Flashmasters, Paul Mendigochea has been working with the program since the release of FutureSplash. He's renowned as the architect of the award–winning FlashPad Web site (www.flasher.net/flashpad.html), which was the first community forum for like–minded Flashers. FlashPad is built entirely in Flash 4, with exemplary use of the new features. According to Paul, "Flash 4's robust forms and client/server features make Flash 4 a viable alternative to HTML–based Web sites." Paul predicts that these new features will propel "the great Internet facelift era," meaning that clunky HTML interfaces will soon be replaced with easy–to–use Flash front ends. To kick–start this era, he also maintains the Flashcgi Web site (www.flashcgi.com), which delivers support to developers who build Flash–based client/server applications. Having originally studied fine arts (BA, University of Waterloo) and literature, language, and computer–mediated–communication (MA, University of Waterloo), Colin Moock now explores theoretical and practical creativity on the Web. During the mid '90s, Colin produced SoftQuad Inc's corporate Web site, when SoftQuad's HoTMetaL PRO ruled the Web–authoring software world. He's now a Web designer at Toronto–based new media firm ICE (www.iceinc.com), creating Web sites and interactive experiences for companies such as Levi's, Sony, The Movie Network, and McClelland & Stewart. Colin's personal exploration of the Web occurs at www.moock.org, where he maintains online artwork, Web experiments, and collections of essays and tutorials for Web developers.

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Customer Reviews

Too thick, too complicated, too stressful
I needed a book to use as a reference (which, having read some of the other reviews, this book seemed able to deal with) as I had already used Flash 4 a fair bit but wanted to learn some of the additional features the programme has to offer. Once in possession of 'Flash 4 bible' however, things just went downhill fast! It seems the version on my computer is OK, but trying to do some of the tasks the bible says you can do is quite a different matter. Simple things like animating buttons and inserting an additional Flash movie within another had me pulling my hair out and nearly checking in to the local mental institution! User friendly? Phuh!! It's about as user friendly as one of NASA's rockets. And to top it all off, 'Flash 4 Bible' comes with a free CD-Rom (this is what you pay your money for, by the way) which has replaced my full version of Flash 4 with a free 30-day trial version which, incidentally, has now expired!!! Why would anyone who buys a book like this want it to come with a 30-day trial version of the programme that they are likely to have installed in the first place?!!...

I didn't have flash last week!
Last week I looked at flash 4 for the first time. I followed the lessons on the program then ordered this book.

This book has everything I need! Whatever I want to do is in this book and explains it in easy to understand terms.

A week later and I'm creating a complex interactive game. Only my fifth project! I think if you're familiar with using layers from photoshop and the construction of how framed animation works, you'll be as successful as I was.

Good in ways, bad in others...
This book is quite basic, and for someone just starting off with flash I would recommend it. But, when moving into the more advanced aspects of flash this book struggles to explain it very well, e.g. Action Script. I found myself looking elsewhere. But overall it's a good reference book and is very strong in explaining the basics of flash.