Customer Reviews

The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 with ActionScript

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Except a chapter supposed to teach you ActionScript, interaction between Flash and ActionScript is only a very small part of the book and largely insuficient. How to stop and start a movie from an ActionScript file is not really explained... and of course no serious examples.

I am on the verge of returning this book to Amazon and yet I hesitate slightly. This book covers a wide range of information on Flash and that's what I like about it. On the other hand, reading the text is almost as if I'm listening in on someone having a conversation with themselves i.e. it lacks a quality of presentation for an audience who a) doesn't know what you have in mind and b) doesn't know Flash as well as you do.

An example of this in chapter 3, pg 75 in explaining how the Pen tool works. The pen tool is a rather complex tool that at first is rather difficult to control well. On step 5, page 76 they have you create a triangle and it's easy to see what you they want you to do because they have illustration 3-34 as an example. But on step 8 they tell you to create "another point on the stage" and eventually they want you to create a corner-curve point and illustration 3-35 seems to show what they intend as the outcome. Problem is, how one gets from 3-34 to 3-35 isn't clear in the least to me and it doesn't get much clearer by step 10 where it seems they assume you've followed their example quite faithfully to the point where you can "count back to the third point" and then continue on with the example.

Perhaps it's a matter of learning style and video tutorials would be better for me?

I haven't used Flash since MX 2004 and found this book the perfect way to get back into it with CS4. It's Actionscript isn't as robust as other books I've looked at, but it gives you the background on the principles of OOP and gets you started with the essentials of programming in Flash, as well as an overview of all the drawing and design tools. If you've never used Flash before, you may want a book that takes a more tutorial approach, but I found it perfect for what I was looking for and I'm now ready to move onto a more comprehensive AS book.

The best thing in this book is the way the authors write it. Easy to understand, it traces a complete overview of Flash CS4 and it's new resources such as AS3. Don't expect to find a Bible about the theme, once every chapter and section could become a role new book, but as it tries to give you the most complete view of CS4 it accomplishes it. I would say it is a great introduction for those who are entering the Flash world and are looking for something fresh. After reading this book you can easily expand your knowlegde buy getting into more specific ones, but only after having experienced this essential guide.

The book starts off easy with basic IDE interaction. As the book progresses, it introduces more and more action-script. Which is essential if you truly wish to become a flash guru. This is hands down one of the better books you will read if your interested in CS4. Some of the tools can be used in CS3 as well, so don't think you need a CS3 book if you only have the CS3 IDE.

I am a long time Flash developer, and when CS4 came out I was excited at the new features, but until I found this book I didn't get the most out of the new features, this helped me a lot.

The `Essential Guide' books from Apress' Friends of ED library are designed to be used as both a detailed look at a subject and a reference guide for future projects, and The Essential Guide to Flash CS4 Air Development definitely fills those requirements. As a web developer, I'm always excited to see ways to extend web apps to the user's desktop and to blur the lines between online and offline applications. Since I have been using Flash for several years, I figured that the logical jump to AIR developing in Flash would be relatively painless and this book seemed like the perfect place to start.

As a reference guide, this book is incredible. With all the detailed examples and explanations into the possibilities of AIR applications, this is absolutely the kind of book to have on hand when working in AIR. The information is clearly segmented and it is very easy to quickly find what you are looking for. All the examples have great supporting notes and it's easy to follow along as each sample application is built.

When reading the book from beginning to end, the book shows a very unfortunate flaw. From the cover of the book, it's clear that the text was written by 4 separate authors and at times that is very apparent. There is some disjointedness that really stands out when reading from chapter to chapter, as each author has their own programming and teaching style and the material can be presented in drastically different ways. These differences can be as minor as how the external packages are imported into the application to as major as providing the source code first and explaining it or explaining each piece and then showing the full source. While each author is clear in their individual presentation, when taken as a whole this book feels very disconnected and somewhat confusing, sometimes taking a few minutes to adjust to a different programming style when moving into the next chapter.

Overall, the information provided in this book is excellent and definitely makes for a great reference. The examples and ideas given, when read within a single chapter or looked up when needed, certainly live up to the `Essential' claim of the title, and are invaluable when moving from Flash and Flex to online/offline AIR development. However the different author styles lead to a `too many cooks' feeling that becomes too distracting when trying to learn and digest new information.

My final thought on this book is that it's definitely helpful to have lying around when you're stuck with some problem in AIR. It's easy to find information and it's detailed enough to get you through some pretty advanced stuff. But for the beginners and those who really want to get into AIR development but don't know where to start, I'd recommend reading a different book. It would be better to get a solid grasp on AIR development first and use this book as additional learning than to get hung up on this book's disjointed chapters and processes.