Customer Reviews

Director 6 Authorized (Macromedia Press Series)

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

 

 

I have used this book teaching Director 6 to university students in Multimedia Authoring class. None of the students had any previous experience with Director, but within 3 weeks they were extremely comfortable and knowledgable about it. The hybrid Mac/Windows CD that comes with the book has a save-disabled version, and is perfect for students who want to work on the tutorials outside of class, sometimes on a different platform. The class has responded enthusiastically to using this book as a very practical text. The Lingo section provides more advanced lessons for those who want to take control of the stage and cast through scripting.

MacroMedia Director is a fairly intricate application to learn. This book does a good job of describing both Mac and PC commands, as well as presenting step by step instructions to get started. The examples and included media are good for getting started while providing a satisfying product for the time spent. Sound and video clips are good examples of how to keep a multimedia document to a manageable size. A few of the visual examples show stage and picture sizes of 8 to 16 bit, where our Pentium II computer was giving 1 6 to 32 bit in the same place, but this did not seem distracting while trying to learn. I would highly recommend this book to someone who wants to learn Director (and Lingo) thoroughly and on her own!

I found Director 6 and Lingo Authorized to be useful for the Director beginner with well thought out tutorials and a building block process that allows you to gain a gradual understanding of the application. However, I struggled in each chapter with technical problems. Every chapter had at least one or more mistakes that you as the inexperienced user had to troubleshoot. It became a frustrating process knowing that I would run in to a problem that wasn't created by me. I spent at least a quarter of my learning time troubleshooting what turned out to be simple typos in the book. Additionally, not all aspects worked, at least not on a Win 98 platform. Anything that was video oriented didn't play and some of the completed lessons didn't work properly either. Some contained script errors and others just didn't work. I have a hard time recommending this book because of those problems even though I think the material is good. If Macromedia improved the quality, I would highly recommend it. Otherwise, I wouldn't get it unless you have a great deal of patience.

If you're new to Director, this is an excellent place to start. Step by step tutorials give you the hands on approach to learning the basics of Director. Poor testing prior to publishing makes their tutorials a bit buggy, but don't let that stop you. Consider it part of the educational value!

If you are completely new to Director (any version) like I was, you will get a lot of value from this book by the people who wrote the software.

The book assumes no prior knowledge of Director and introduces the self-paced student to most of Director's elements. I have completed the first book in this 2-book set (2 complete books in one binding) and am in the middle of Lesson 4 of the Lingo book.

I purchased the book before getting my own copy of Windows Director 6 and found the Demo version invaluable to start learning Director. The limitations of the save-restricted version were minor and I fully recommend this book for new users.

Director users that have experience with a prior version or alternate platform will find this book too basic. Both books are NOT exhaustive references on every Director feature and Lingo command. While "Director 6 AUTHORIZED" is a great introduction, most Director developers will want to add other Director books to their shelves.

Diretor 6 Authorized is an excelent book to learn Director. The lessons are consise and yet thorough. The teaching method used, "learning by doing", is the only real way to learn Director. This book facilitates this learning in an excellent way.

However, if you don't have your own copy of Director 6, the limited version that you get on the CD that comes with the book, is highly insuficient. As I haven't yet bought my own version of Director 6, I can't complete certain lessons because of missing elements in the CD's version. For example,the Director 6 that comes with the book,has no behavior inspectors. This realy limits you from realy getting to know Director 6 and it's functionality. I had to find someone else with Director 6 and use their computer.

Other than this, I highly recomend this book for those who are self-learners, and for those who may be teaching a class about Director or multimedia in general.