Flash CS4 All-in-One For Dummies [Paperback]

Doug Sahlin (Author), William B. Sanders (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 3, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0470385391 | ISBN-13: 978-0470385395

Ready to take your Flash skills to the next level? Learn how to use Adobe Flash CS4 to create innovative interactive experiences! Flash CS4 All-In-One For Dummies shows you how to create professional, cool projects, step by step, from start to finish.

Whether you’re working on your first Flash project or you’re a veteran Flash animator ready to get into more advanced applications, Flash CS4 All-In-One For Dummies walks you through Flash’s new tricks and explains how to use them. You’ll get the skinny on new features including inverse kinematics, motion tweening, and Motion Editor. You’ll also find out how to:

• Work with panels
• Take advantage of an ActionScript
• Create and plan your first project
• Follow the ins and outs of Flash graphics
• Navigate your way around the swatches panel
• Get your video on the Web using YouTube
• Utilize Flash audio and video
• Develop with the Flash timeline

To help you quickly find what you need, Flash CS4 All-In-One For Dummies is divided into eight minibooks:

• Introducing Flash
• Creating Graphics
• Animating Graphics
• Adding ActionScript 3.0 Magic
• Working with Flash Audio
• Working with Flash Video
• Getting Interactive
• Finalizing a Flash Project

Flash CS4 All-In-One For Dummies will help make your experience animating in Flash much easier!

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Learn Flash CS4 from the ground up with this one-stop, nuts-and-bolts reference guide!

Take your Flash skills to the next level with this easy-to-use book that explains it all! Whether you're working on your first Flash project or you're a veteran Flash animator ready to get into more advanced applications, Flash CS4 All-in-One For Dummies shows you Flash's new tricks and shows you how to use them — in a flash!

• Find out what's new in Flash — get the skinny on new features including inverse kinematics, motion tweening, and Motion Editor

• Deco tool, Spray Brush, Bone tool, and more! — find out about all the fun new tools Flash has to offer in CS4

• Your first Flash project made easy — learn how to create professional, cool projects, step by step from start to finish

• Get ready for prime time — from camera to desktop, get the inside scoop on working with Flash video

• Get interactive — everything you need to know to add Flash to create cool interfaces for applications and Web sites

Open the book and find:

• Clear explanations of graphics, symbols, and animations

• Tips for working with panels

• What ActionScript can do for you

• How to create and plan your first project

• The ins and outs of Flash-y graphics

• How to add artistic colors and gradients with the color panel

• Nuts-and-bolts tips for working with Flash audio and video

• Steps for working with the Flash Timeline

About the Author

Doug Sahlin is a professional photographer and Web designer. His authoring credits include Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies and Digital Photography Workbook For Dummies.

Bill Sanders is a prolific author on Flash and Web technologies and operates his own multimedia consulting business at sandlight.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies (December 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470385391
• ISBN-13: 978-0470385395
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,087,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Doug Sahlin is a graphic and website designer, photographer, and the author of several books, including How to Do Everything with Adobe Acrobat 8.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I'm not sure who this book is for..., August 1, 2009

By 

HC Wildpig "HCW" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flash CS4 All-in-One For Dummies (Paperback)

While I appreciate the relatively quick pace of "Flash CS4 All in One for Dummies", I can't agree with its description as being useful for both those completely new to flash as well as seasoned vets. It seems to fall squarely in the middle of those two groups much of the time, but then careens widely in either direction at the strangest times. The book is broken up into "sub" books, and the authors make it clear that the overall book should be treated as a reference guide and less as a straight read; this alone makes it a pretty tough read for someone completely new to Flash, but it also seems to make the strangest assumptions about what a new user would likely know and then one section later it spends multiple pages on information that isn't even specific to the Adobe Suite, nevertheless to Flash.

Most of the useful "what has changed with Flash" information is hidden throughout the book, so if you're familiar with a recent version of Flash, this isn't much of a helpful manual either. I was coming from a professional working knowledge of the rest of the Adobe Suite, but was years out of touch with Flash, so the book's mostly middle ground approach to CS4 was useful to me. However, I still felt like the presentation order of topics was unhelpful, and trying to read through the book quickly resulted in having to skip pages just as frequently as I had to go back a few pages wondering if I'd missed something.

There seemed to be a minimum amount of confusing typos, but honestly, the 3 or 4 I found that actually mixed up labels or broke code are really 3 or 4 too many for a "beginner's" guide. Also, the default layout and available windows in Flash tended to be different than what the Author's assumed they would be, so there are a few places of confusion that result from that.

All in all I found this book useful for what I needed to do, which was jump a big gap of missing knowledge of Flash, but I'm not sure how many others are looking for this book to do only that.

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is Usless, July 21, 2011

By 

D. Wegner (Santa Cruz CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Flash CS4 All-in-One For Dummies (Paperback)

Maybe it's just me but these two "writers" (and I use the term loosely) should have their pencils taken away. Their code examples DON"T WORK! The download files that they say can be downloaded from their "Dummies site" are non existent. Evidently proof reading was too much of an effort. The tiny, tiny fonts used to show their (unworkable)code and high gloss paper make this book almost unreadable. All in all I should have purchased a couple of pizzas with the money I spent on this useless chunk of trash. I guess they really mean it when they say this book is for dummies....I was a real dummy for buying it that's for sure!!!

1.0 out of 5 stars Stay Far Away, February 21, 2010

By 

Zarathustra (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flash CS4 All-in-One For Dummies (Paperback)

This is one of the poorest books I've ever used; my first and last of any of the dummies series. I have a programmer background but never used flash. Action script is a little strange but no big deal. It would be nice if the examples from their download page actually worked! Book IV chapter 1 "OnStage" "TextMove" as two of many examples: you just down load the examples and hit control + enter and it DOES NOTHNG!

I did find the error in another one (a missing semi-colon) but I could only know this from looking at OTHER code examples on the web! It is pretty hard to debug a language you don't know, I can't image how anyone with little or no programming background could figure it out.

Echo the poor organization from the above critiques and the 2 pages to say virtually nothing on obvious concepts and the poor explanations of the unique or more complex concepts.

Oh yea, try to get to the "registration" page where they'd be glad to hear from you or to provide information.

Go to the ADOBE web site and use the tutorials. Money well saved!