15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book covers all aspects of Flash problems & solutions, May 20, 2006
This review is from: Flash 8 Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)
This book focuses primarily on how to use the Flash IDE to build Flash animations and applications, but additional Flash Platform technologies are discussed when deemed appropriate and within the scope of the book. This book is intended for anyone who wants to learn solutions to specific tasks using Flash regardless of experience. Like all books in O'Reilly's cookbook series, this book is not a typical reference book or training guide, thus it is assumed that you are already familiar with the basics of Flash. It is also assumed that if you are reading this book, you are most interested in Flash-based, authoring time, non-ActionScript solutions. For example, it is technically possible to animate programmatically with ActionScript; however, the non-ActionScript solution is emphasized in this book. It's possible that an ActionScript solution is either necessary or better in some circumstances, and, in those cases, the ActionScript solution is provided either by itself or in addition to a non-ActionScript solution. If you are looking for a book that focuses on ActionScript solutions, you probably want to look elsewhere. Thus, the vast majority of solutions provided for each "Recipe" are in the form of numbered steps that tell you which options within the Flash IDE to select. However, there are also detailed discussions in addition to the "How-To" steps for each recipe. The book starts out answering the most basic questions about drawing simple geometric shapes and proceeds on to topics such as interactivity, structuring and laying out movies, using 3D in flash, and animation. My favorite chapter is "Deploying Flash on Mobile Devices", since all published material on that subject is now very outdated. Amazon does not show the table of contents, so I do that here:
Chapter 1. Drawing in Flash
Chapter 2. Importing and Exporting Artwork
Chapter 3. Structuring Movies and Laying Out Content
Chapter 4. Creating Animation
Chapter 5. Simulating 3D in Flash
Chapter 6. Composing Images with Bitmaps and Masks
Chapter 7. Working with Text Basics
Chapter 8. Working with Dynamic Text
Chapter 9. Adding Interactivity
Chapter 10. Managing Playback
Chapter 11. Managing Movie Clips
Chapter 12. Creating Presentations and Slideshows
Chapter 13. Building Flash Forms
Chapter 14. Building Advanced Flash Forms
Chapter 15. Customizing UI Components
Chapter 16. Loading Images and Flash Content
Chapter 17. Working with Sound
Chapter 18. Working with Video
Chapter 19. Using Data
Chapter 20. Building Preloaders
Chapter 21. Publishing Flash
Chapter 22. Deploying Flash on Mobile Devices
Chapter 23. Making Movies Accessible
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I should have listened.... Very basic!, September 19, 2006
This review is from: Flash 8 Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)
This is a book for beginners, not even intemmediate level readers. If you are familiar with any other design software like Illustrator, Photoshop, CorelDraw, etc. you will find that much of this book is useless since you already know it! This is a perfect exapmple, quoting the book:
"1.1 Drawing Straight lines
Problem: you want to create a straight line segment or a shape made out of multiple straight line segments.
Solution
Use the line tool[...], the pen tool[...] or the pencil tool."
This is by no means a "cookbook" and I'm very disappointed with O'Reilly being the publisher, since most of the time their books are great.
The book probably focuses on REAL ACTIONSCRIPTING up to 15% its entire content!
Only consider it if you never worked with a design application in your whole life and don't have the time or patience to read more than 2-page long chapters.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Many Cooks, Substantial Stew, May 8, 2006
This review is from: Flash 8 Cookbook (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)
This is one of those books where having lots of authors results in a better value. For such a wide and still fast-growing field as Flash development, it takes many points of view to ensure that your own is part of the mix. In my experience, most tech books have one or two tech editors. This one had 9.
Finding a Flash solution is easy because the book's format is consistently Problem -> Solution -> Discussion. This facilitates homing in on what you need. The discussion is where the true learning value is concentrated for those who want to go beyond dealing with their current production challenge.
One important aspect of this book should be mentioned. The authors concentrate on Flash-based, authoring-time solutions. ActionScript is not the focus -- even though it plays a role in many solutions here. If you are looking for a focus on ActionScript, you may want to consider a different book.
With that proviso only, I recommend this book.
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