Customer Reviews

Director 8 Demystified

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I have been playing with programming for a little over a year. I took a couple of java classes to start, which were mainly geared toward creating applets. That experience showed me that the best way to learn was to get a good book, because you can buy about 6 or 8 expensive books (or more) for the price of one expensive class, and the classes are reprises of some book or other. It's a matter of finding the right book, or at least a good book. I'm not going to rave about this book. It's good, and it got me well started with director, but I'm glad I had the other programming experience (I've played with VB as well) to make Lingo a little more accessible. Lingo is a powerful and complex language in its own right, and it is the real power in Director. You will have an animation going in the first hour you use this book, but expect to have to create some new neural pathways to understand Lingo as you get deeper into it. I am writing this to give my brain a much needed break from the Ancestor, Parent, Child coding that is director's version of classes and instances, and to warn you of what you will encounter. There is a 400 page lexicon of the language at the end of the book, which I am sure will be handy once I accept that I have to get a handle on it. I understand the popularity of Flash now, it does what java applets claimed they would do but in a much more user friendly envoirenment (evolution I guess), but it doesn't go as far as director in it's language potential. I belive that Director can do a great deal of what the rest of java promises as well - director isn't just for the web. Buy the book, but don't expect an easy road.

Of all the applications I've self-taught, Macromedia Director has got to be the toughest one to find a concise tutorial publication for. I tried the Visual Quickstart, which is just that: program features in depth, with no practical exercises. I tried Training from the Source, which focussed mostly on the 3D capabilities, only slightly skimming the rest of this massive program's productivity tools. It seemed for a while there was no one book I could use to get up and running with Director; at one point I literally had four books piled on each other to use as a cross reference!

The reason I put off checking out this title was because it didn't cover 8.5, which is what I'm using .... now I'm kicking myself for all the time and money I could have saved picking it up to begin with. The only difference between 8.0 and 8.5 is the 3D tools, and frankly (at least for now) that is a trivial plus to this industry standard, interactive media development tool that I've wanted to get a handle on since getting my first Mac back in '93.

Starting with a guided tour of the interface, working through simple step-by-step fundamental exercises, and culminating in a massive Lingo glossary, I'm happy to say my search for the all-in-one-book beginner's guide to Macromedia Director is over. Replete with screenshots galore, as well as a CD rom with tutorial materials and tantalizing sample files (including one created for Oingo Boingo, now how cool is THAT), I must concede with the other reviewers in this section that "Demystified" is the ultimate starting place for Macromedia's defining application, hands down. Now, if only there were more hours to the day ....

Despite the title, this book is the best source for learning Lingo, especially if you're a beginner. I didn't find this out until recently, while shopping for a book on Lingo. After looking over several books, such as Director In A Nutshell, I found myself intimidated by all the scripting and technical jargon associated with Lingo. I was looking for a book that could explain each aspect of Lingo in simplistic terms augemented by examples (both in the book and on CD). After weeks of searching, I discovered that the best source for Lingo was already in my possession. Initially, I bought the book for my college classes, but eventually, because of desperation, I decided to refer to it for examples in Lingo. To my surprise, it covered everything I needed to know plus gave tips on how to efficiently apply the language.

This is a great book for learning Lingo as well as the rest of Director. I recommend it to anyone who is beginning to learn the software. The content is easy to follow and ...can learn to create simple movies easily. The only subject that this book doesn't get into deeply is Shockwave. There is a short chapter on it, but it doesn't go beyond the basics. However, there are other books such as Shocking the Web that can get you up to speed on Shockwave. Other than that, I have no complaints about the book and will always use it whenever I have a problem with Director.

This book includes:

Overview of changes in the Director interface, including the Property Inspector. "Scriptless authoring" with Director's Behaviors New methods for controlling sound in movies. Adding CD-quality audio, digital video, and real-time animation with dynamic alpha channels. Comprehensive instruction in Lingo, Director's powerful scripting language--from the basics to advanced topics, including the latest additions to the language. A Lingo Lexicon covering ALL the elements of the language, including undocumented commands.

A great book for anyone who wants to learn Director 8.

I was familiar with Flash yet very intimidated to try and learn Director, but this book presented itself clearly and conscisely. Right from the start it gets you through the most basic tasks, giving you really great tips and hints along the way. I was impressed with how much I could create with the program after just one day. It's extremely well written in easy to understand. Don't let its size intimidate you, (1200+ pages)...its well worth it.

So you wanna learn Director? It's a daunting task, esp if Lingo is your 1st language (but it's also an excellent choice! You can do so much w/ Director to keep you engaged, and it's no where near as convoluted as Java. Closer to VB but much more fun.) Spend some money ... and read these books in THIS order (and do every tutorial!) 1. Demystified. Gets into concepts more than just typing in stuff that you don't understand. Great short, straightforward examples. It will provide a fantastic basis for the next book (you'll actually know what you're doing...) 2. Authorized. Basically a bunch of tutorials. Mandatory! 3. LINGO in a Nutshell. Granted it only goes to Director v. 6 but it's still the best pure LINGO book for the money. Dry, but you will have mastered the language if you carefully get through it. Invaluable albeit dated as a reference. 4. (Optional) Advanced Lingo for Games. Games put programmers and programs through their paces. Great, fun book.

Do 1 through 4 and you will have mastered this great Macromedia program! Take your time, don't get frustrated. Learning Director and Lingo is a process. Good luck!

This book was an excellent read and it kept me entertained from cover to cover. Even the Lingo lexicon was a good read filled with explanations and examples. I have never used Director before, but now we are publishing our multimedia, video-enriched software demo CDs for the company. I must also mention that one of the reasons why I am so impressed by this book is because I'm also highly impressed by Director. I've been using other authoring tools before, but nothing comes even close to Macromedia Director. This, however takes nothing away from the authors of this great book. Some said before that the examples are pretty basic and it's true, but this book is not about graphics design, but about teaching all aspects of Director. And it's a jolly good one in that! Buy it, you'll love it.

The author Phil Gross wrote this book very well. Although, his style of writing and explanation isn't the best, it is the examples. He gives great examples on how to do things in certain situations. Guiding yourself is very easy, because tells you if you should start here or there depending if you are a beginner or not. I would definitley recommend this book to others.

Extensive wealth of knowledge for beginner to intermediate multimedia users. Good buy, especially because when broadband catches on, Director will be the premier program for the web.

I am a computer programmer stepping into the world of Authoring tools to help me build projects more quickly. I have recently learned Macromedia DreamWeaver UltraDev and Flash 5 and was intimidated by the Director trial. Upon purchasing the full version, this was the first book I bought.

I found this book very educational in the concepts shown. I was able to immediately grasp the Director paradigms and comfortable in using the program. It was well paced and focused a decent bit on Lingo which was important to me (although it placed plenty of emphasis on the other aspects of Director 8.

The examples could have been more interesting but they were very functional devices for understanding the concepts being taught.

One chapter in particular stands out over all other books I've seen for other tools. Ch. 10 Building The Interactive Movie provides a walkthrough of the process a developer should take when designing/building a new project with Director. It is only about 40 pages, but is very well put together along with a specific "useful" demonstration project. It was placed in exactly the right place after learning a decent bit about Director.

There is also a very handy Reference in the back for the Lingo language. This lexicon will be a valuable resource in future development.

As of the writing of this review, I am only half way through this book and it has already been well worth the money and time. I'm looking forward to the second half. I would recommend anyone using Director 8 for the first time to buy this book!