Customer Reviews

Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Bible

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Do not buy this book if you intend to use ActionScript 3.0. Most of the code and examples in the book use AS 2.0. Entire chapters have this note at the beginning: "NOTE: This chapter discusses ActionScript 2.0 implementations of ..."

I bought this book as a reference for learning Flash as a beginner. There is no reason for me to waste time learning AS 2.0.

I've been buying The Flash Bible since Flash 4 was the current version. I continue to believe that it is the best Flash book out there. I teach Flash at a community college and recommend it as a desktop reference for my students. I especially like two things about the book. First, I like the updates covering user-interface changes from Flash 8. This is very important to my students, since we continue to use the previous version of Flash in the class. It helps them transition to CS3 more easily. I also like the new chapter on scripted animation; it has helped me understand the copy motion as actionscript 3.0 command. I'm developing a workshop from the book that I'll be doing for companies whose creative staff are making the jump to CS3. They're going to love using Reinhardt's book.

I went to the bookstore earlier today to look for a good Flash CS3/Actionscript 3.0 reference, because boy did they change a lot of things in ActionScript this time around. As I paged through this I noticed that all, or almost all, their ActionScript examples are ActionScript 2.0! What?? If you want to do anything really interesting in Flash CS3 you have to learn ActionScript 3.0. Learning AS2 is not the same at all; they're practically two different languages. I'd go so far as to say learning AS2 is counterproductive to learning AS3, because it instills you with bad habits, like putting actions directly on objects, instead of on their own layer.

I don't know how this book was printed. Why teach Flash CS3 with AS2? It doesn't make sense at all. The only thing I can imagine is they thought they could boost sales by updating a Flash 8 manual they had, but hadn't even looked at Flash CS3.

Do not buy this. Trust me. Make sure your Flash manual teaches the ActionScript appropriate to its iteration of Flash. I thought this would be a no-brainer.

I recommend this book to all the new flashers out there trying to get started with flash, unless you have programing experience ActionScript 3.0 is not for you, its for programmers. The Bible is great for what is covers: design tools, motion tools/techniques, and yeah, some code to get you started your life-long journey of learning code. (oh yeah its a life long thing)

I'm not sure why people are making such a big deal out of the AS2 examples in this book. Flash CS3 != AS3. This book is not intended for advanced programmers that are trying to create large-scale projects; it is an introduction to the Flash CS3 IDE. This is essential reading if you are new to Flash, as it covers all of the basic concepts that surround Flash design and development. Once you graduate from this book, you should definitely move on to a more advanced text that covers the ActionScript 3.0 language if that is something that you are interested in. If you are new to Flash and are looking for a place to start...look no further.

This book covers Flash CS3 very thoroughly. There are many useful features in CS3 than just the Actionscript alone, and this book covers them very well. From animation techniques to video audio tricks to programming a full on application, it has everything I need to begin building with CS3. If the weight of the book alone doesn't show you how much information is packed into this book, it also comes with a CD-ROM with tons of files I can use to experiment. CS3 is a huge upgrade and knowing the tools and features will take you further and make it easier for the developer. If you are going to start with anything in CS3, start with this book.

This book does an excellent job of covering what it set out to cover: Flash CS3. This is a book geared towards designers and beginners. If you are looking for a great book on AS3, I would suggest the AS 3.0 bible.

Where's AS3? just on the cover? looks like replace("flash 8", "flash cs3")... its not flash cs3, its not as3...

I'm really disappointed.

The book has CS3 in the cover, the back cover says "Unravel the nuts and bolts of ActionScript 3.0 code", yet when I look up XML in chapter 30 and data binding later in the book; it's all ActionScript 2.

There's a note on page 960 advising ActionScript 3 does it differently, and that's it.

It gets worse, the Section "Approaching ActionScript" on page 731 contains the justification for sticking to AS2, to paraphrase the logic:
AS3 is highly evolved compared to AS2.
AS3 requires more that a fundamental understanding of basic programing so we'll use AS2.
Someday when you're using AS3( with no help from this book) you should be able to use this AS2 with a little modification.

Hardly what you'd expect from a reference book claiming that it is unraveling the nuts and bolts of AS3.

is a good book, a lot of information, but i think it would be better, and I was hoping that a little more explained...