Macromedia Flash 8 Bible: Amazon.co.uk: Robert Reinhardt, Snow Dowd: Books

Product Description

Written by two of the industry’s top Flash experts, this new edition of the best–selling classic has been revised and enhanced to cover the very latest release of Macromedia Flash. User–friendly, yet in–depth this is the book that serves as an indispensable reference for anyone –– from the web novice to the accomplished web worker –– and functions as the perfect, real–world guide to the workings and capabilities of this powerful program. The accompanying CD–ROM includes trial software, custom components and finished examples.

Totally enhanced and revised edition of the all–time Flash classic reference!
Everything you need to know to learn and master the Macromedia Flash 8 –– the most comprehensive Flash reference available
Includes a CD–ROM packed with files from the book and valuable tryouts.
Co–author Robert Reinhardt is one of the two or three top stars in the Flash developer community, speaking regularly at FlashForward, the Macromedia User′s Conference, WebTEK, Macromedia′s traveling user seminars, and major universities. No other title matches this one in both comprehensiveness and author reputation.
Includes expert tutorials from the world′s leading Flash gurus
Includes tips for integrating Flash with other programs
Includes unpublished tricks, techniques and time–savers

"When I′m planning the FlashBelt conference, Reinhardt is the first one I call. His knowledge reaches to the farthest corners of the software."

–Dave Schroeder, Director, FlashBelt conferences; Owner, PilotVibe Music and Sound Design

"Its range and depth make the Flash Bible a must–have for designers, developers and producers of Flash content." –– Matthew Carroll, designer, Wieden + Kennedy

From the Back Cover

"When I′m planning the FlashBelt conference, Reinhardt is the first one I call. His knowledge reaches to the farthest corners of the software."
—Dave Schroeder, Director, FlashBelt conferences; Owner, PilotVibe Music and Sound Design

If Macromedia Flash 8 can do it, you can do it too ...

Squeeze every last ounce of power from the very latest edition of Macromedia Flash with this enhanced and revised edition of the bestseller. Written by two Flash experts, this user–friendly, in–depth guide is packed with tips, expert tutorials, and hidden tricks you won′t find elsewhere. Create graphics that jump off the page and make your content richly interactive. Animate, script, manipulate data, send customer data to a server, create robust apps — Flash 8 does it all. Now you can too, with this Flash reference at your side.

Inside, you′ll find complete coverage of Macromedia Flash 8

Transform your Movie clips with new blend modes, filters, and gradients
Scale your artwork to perfection with a new nine–slice scaler
Get better looking text with crystal–clear FlashType font renderer
Create characters with lip–synching, walk cycles, and atmosphere
Understand the nuts and bolts of ActionScript code
Integrate and control video directly in Flash
Attach and bind data to components for a dynamic Web site
Work with Dreamweaver®, Fireworks®, ColdFusion®, Director®, and more
Create a game in a Flash and win
Make Flash movies for mobile devices

Bonus CD is loaded with sample files, custom components, and finished examples!

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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful

Useless book, neither a bible nor a beginner's help 23 Aug 2006

By G. M. Phillips

Format:Paperback

What a disappointment this book is. It's far from being a bible because the layout of the book is seemingly completely random. It also is completely wrong about how realistic animation is achieved - I used to be a games programmer.

As a long-time C++ programmer, I needed both a reference and a learning guide. What this book, and its companion, equally useless Actionscript Bible, does is to go through all aspects of Macromedia Flash 8 in detail, by going through every little item available on the interface. We're literally half way through the book before we get to a section called "Building your first project"! This is exactly the wrong approach, the last thing you need to do is to learn every detail about something before you've started the hands-on part of learning. And in terms of being a "bible", which I take to mean a reference guide, what is needed is a strongly indexed set of sections about movie clips, the timeline, actionscript, the interfaces, web pages etc, and not just a random twaddle.

The way animation of a moving man is described is that of drawing the frames as though moving on the spot, and then applying just the right amount of movement on certain frames. This is wrong. The correct way of perfect movement is to draw a set of frames where the man moves through space within the area being drawn without any adjustment to the X or Y. Then, on the very last frame, where the next frame would be identical to the first, you add the pixel difference to the X and Y, before reverting back to the first frame once again. That's how it's done properly, and it is frankly astonishing that this so-called bible tells the reader the wrong way.

For me that's �40 badly spent.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Vehement defence of these books!!! 24 Sep 2007

By Daniel Norman

I must jump to the defense of these books based on what I've read from other users. In my opinion, they are well laid out and offer use as both walk-through introductions and "skip-in-and-out" references.

I don't want to labour the point but these books have taken my Flash work to a whole new level and I have made huge steps forward in both my personal and professional development.

A site that I'm just finishing which has been based almost entirely on what these books have taught me is www.bdjfl.com

Look at this site and try telling me these books aren't worth 40 quid!

The guide to using Flash 14 Dec 2006

By M. Gordon

I found this book extremely useful in both providing me with a guide to how things are done in Flash and the historical context of how things were done. This makes this an exceptionally useful book for both newcomers to Flash and those who have delved into Flash in the past, especially those with a non-programming background. Flash is such a diverse tool these days that it can be used in many ways. The video section in this book was worth the cover price in itself especially as Flash is now the format of choice for online video. I thoroughly recommend this book.