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For designers with some Flash experience, the section on "Assigning ActionScripts to Buttons and Frames" and "Building Interactive Movies" is where both Flash and this book begin to really shine. Understanding object-oriented programming and learning to use ActionScript are vital talents for anything more than pedestrian Flash work, and these sections build a solid foundation on which to build. Numerous simple examples demonstrate useful concepts that can be applied to larger projects, such as using buttons to control the playback of not only the Flash movie in which it's embedded but other movies as well ("nested movie clips"), and using variables and strings in scripts.
While the book doesn't come with a CD, it does include some terrific features such as a 23 page index, and an appendix listing a plethora of Flash sites that offer developer assistance, code examples, and links to some of the best Flash sites on the Web. Each chapter is clearly written and well illustrated. If the book could make coffee, then it really could do everything. --Mike Caputo
Topics covered: 16 chapters spanning 500 pages cover everything from early planning and how it affects approaching the project, exploring the interface, and basic Flash principles, through creating and animating in Flash, creating artwork for import, using such Flash features as symbols, libraries, and instances, and on to animation techniques and interactivity. --Willam Steinmetz
Few Internet provinces rival the creative and commercial power of motion graphics on the Web. And no application comes close to creating Web-ready motion graphics, movies, or sound as effectively as Flash. How to Do Everything with Flash 5 covers the latest upgrades, such as compressing and transmitting complex elements like MP3 audio, object library features, movie clips, and interactivity over low bandwidth. Learn to animate figures, text, color-virtually anything. Whether creating Web content, business presentations, or publishing multimedia interactive content, this single resource will show you how Flash 5 can bring your presentations to life!
The problem is if you are not a beginner. This is NOT a reference or advanced book. If you have a question (about something simple) and need the answer to it, you can't just look it up in the index and turn to the page. You will find yourself on step 26 (or whatever) of a larger project that you'd have to trace back to the beginning and follow up until that point. Sometimes this isn't a big deal as nothing here gets TOO complex, but I found it frustrating how brief some explanations were and always closed the book and looked up the problem in one of the many other excellent reference books ("Flash 5 Bible", "Flash 5 Visual Quickstart" [1st & Advanced editions]). The ActionScript section is particularly light and glosses over many concepts without REALLY explaining them. You really don't venture too far from the "Basic" actions.
Again, to learn from point "A", this book has it's merit (although I personally liked "Foundation Flash 5" better). The price certainly is right. You couldn't really LEARN the program from scratch by reading the "Flash 5 Bible" or any other "reference" book. You would probably want a project oriented "how-to". I didn't like this one. And for what it's worth, the picture on the cover of the annoying clean-cut boy with the lipstick irritated me to no end as it is also the 1st page of every chapter. Puleese! Isn't Flash about graphics? Add a half star if cornyness doesn't bother you.
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