The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript [Paperback]

Paul Milbourne (Author), Michael Oliver (Author), Chris Kaplan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1430218118 | ISBN-13: 978-1430218111 | Publication Date: March 5, 2009 | Edition: 1

The Essential Guide to Flash with ActionScript is the most complete guide to all that’s new, powerful, and dynamic for the experienced Flash developer. Chock full of need-to-know techniques for getting the coolest Web sites designed, up, and running as efficiently as possible.

Adobe’s Flash has become the most ubiquitous tool ever created for Web professionals and the latest version is a must-have upgrade for everyone using Flash. This is the one book to have for getting Flash things done!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Chris Kaplan is a multimedia consultant for Mosaic Learning, located in Greenbelt, Maryland. An award-winning multimedia developer, Chris has been working in Flash for more than 10 years on teams contributing to interactive experiences for the U.S. Mint, UNICEF, Ameriquest, the Bill of Rights Institute, and many others. As an audio engineer and composer, he has worked on productions for National Geographic, TLC, "America's Most Wanted," and in 2005, with Two Animators! LLP (www.twoanimators.com), he was a finalist for Best Cartoon at the Flash Forward Film Festival for his work on The Poochinos—Dog Mafia. Chris has been streaming live video over the Internet for over 10 years as a webcast engineer for events with former vice president Al Gore, Cisco Systems, the Peace Corps, Buzz Aldrin, and the Office of Head Start. Chris brings considerable experience in combining live webcasting, video production, and post-production disciplines with creating multimedia experiences. He currently lives with his wife, Lindsey, and two daughters in Maryland.

Paul Milbourne is an Adobe Certified Expert and instructor for Flash. He has been a Flash platform consultant in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area for the better part of a decade. His journey has allowed him to work with such clients as the Washington Redskins, Baltimore Ravens, Democratic National Committee, and many others. For the most part, Paul has made a handsome career cleaning up after other developers. This experience has exposed him to most aspects of Flash development through a multitude of industries. His true passion is the advancement of the Flash community in that area. Paul is the principal and founding member of the Baltimore-Washington Adobe Flash User Group, which boasts more than 300 members. His vision is to unite that community in a collaborative effort, both informationally and vocationally. Paul studies computer science and art at the University of Maryland. And, though he was a professional chef in a former life, he is not responsible for any of the food references in this book!

A bio is not available for this author.

Product Details

• Paperback: 568 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (March 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430218118
• ISBN-13: 978-1430218111
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book on all thing Flash CS4 and ActionScript, June 26, 2009

By 

F. Stepanski - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript (Paperback)

Flash CS4 has been out for a bit now (around a year) and most of the new Flash books have updated their material to Flash CS4. Most books are just re-hashing what the CS3 books covered and give the reader little more information. But this book totally re-vamps the explanation of the new version of Adobe Flash.

The authors really try a different way of categorizing the explanations of how to use Flash CS4 from an interface perspective, an animation perspective, programming perspective (AS 3.0) and how it works all together.

I really enjoyed how the author separated the different sections of the book so readers who are looking for animation techniques or programming techniques don't have to hunt through the whole book trying to find what they need.

The explanations of the new features of Flash CS4 such as the streamlined Flash interface, kinematics, 3d transformations, new filters, etc. There really aren't any big differences in ActionScript from Flash CS3, apart from a few new animation libraries and such. The language is still in version 3.0. But the organization of how AS is explained is really to notch and easy to follow.

I have taught Flash and ActionScript for a number of years now, and always found it difficult to find a Flash book that would be able to cover the topics for beginners wanting to learn the basics of Flash as well as intermediate users who want to learn about ActionScript. I finally found my book.

This is a great book for beginners as well as intermediate Flash users wanting to learn how to use Flash and ActionScript for more interactive Flash websites.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars For programmers only, not a beginners book, November 25, 2009

By 

Dan R (Binghamton, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript (Paperback)

This book gave a second class presentation on animation within Flash CS4, which was sufficient for me as an experienced After Effects animator, but I'd have to guess is would not be sufficient for someone without animation experience. The Intro to Actionscript 3.0 section was in no way an introduction, unless the reader is an experienced programmer. Having successfully programmed Flash projects in Actionscript 2 using the 'canned' mouse events, go to frame functions, etc, I had hopes of this book taking me to the next level in using actionscript 3. Unfortunately, I've found the writing of the Actionscript portion of the book pretty much incomprehensible ... even to the point it has not provided me with the information necessary to program a button to go to a frame on the timeline.

I bought this book based on the reviews found here, but have not had the experience they did. If you are new to programming, DO NOT buy this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent guide to all of Flash CS4, March 30, 2009

By 

Gary Wayne Thorn (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript (Kindle Edition)

This book is in my opinion the best book written on the topic of Flash CS4. Not only does it give an excellent guide to those just beginning in Flash it is a great book for advanced users trying to learn the new features of CS4. It also is a great starting point for those who want to migrate from ActionScript 2.0 development to ActionScript 3.0 development. It lays a great groundwork for developers to get their head around AS3 development and the differences it has in comparison to AS2. Its a great read and I recommend it to any developer looking to improve.