Customer Reviews

Flash CS4: The Missing Manual (Missing Manuals)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I wish all how-to guides were written like the Missing Manual series. They really approach things from the perspective of a user who is new to the program and wants to get the meat of how it works, but isn't familiar or comfortable with the setup and how everything in the program flows yet. I GET Flash after this book, and now it seems like 'why didn't someone just say it this way in the first place????' The Actionscript section in here is GREAT for someone who is new to Actionscript. It doesn't just dive in and bog you down in terms and theories right away, it uses several good analogies the average person can relate to in explain what Actionscript is and what it does and then gets into more details (I am sure true Actionscript junkies would say their overview was very basic, but for someone new to the language, I felt it was just right)- If you had to get one book to help you work with Flash, I would say make it this one. There are some 'flashier' visually more pretty books out there, but they leave alot of the explanation unsaid unfortunately. This book doesn't

I have several books from the Missing Manual series and I have not been disappointed with anyone of them. Flash CS4: The Missing Manual, and the others in the series I purchased, have all been well written, easy to follow and loaded with information to allow for the immediate use of whatever product they are instructing the reader. I use to purchase the lynda.com series of instructional books (which is also a top-notch series), but I now prefer, and look for, the title Missing Manual whenever I need an instructional book no matter that I may have documentation (online or bookform) that came with the software. The Missing Manual truely fills in the blanks!

I don't read any of these books! No, I study them page by page and work through all of the examples. That's the only way to do it if you want to learn. By far and away, Flash CS4, The Missing Manual, has it all. Best organized, great examples and touches important subjects that the others do not. It's all in there, from creating Storyboards, targeting viewers, the new Motion Editor, advanced drawing techniques, using Scenes in detail, IK bones, Sound, Video, useful Action Script examples and lots more. If you want to get up to speed then this is the book. This Flash CS4 Missing Manual is not missing anything.

Much of the missing manual series is good. But this one has more then a few flat out errors and omissions, advice on how to use the program that is wrong. In addition it was not proofread very well. Ridiculous stuff like "See the box on page 193 for details". Well that's written on page 193 and the box isn't on that page. Yikes! The author refers to some tools with the wrong name at times, calling the Free Transform Tool the Scale Tool. Yeah ok I got what he meant, but I mean come on. Early on in the book he uses in his explanations topics which have not yet been covered. Then there's idiocy like this: Shift Drag the end of the timeline: Has no effect on property keyframes. Okay, he's talking about removing frames here and leaving a Motion Tween intact and in place. Yes this does work, but .... he just used an example wherein you'd use this action to remove frames off the end. Well if you do this and you Shift Drag back in the timeline it removes the property keyframes you've dragged over. So of course it has an effect on these frames! Then this: Clicking anywhere on the tween selects the entire tween and moves the playhead to the frame of that tween. I does select the entire tween but it doesn't move to the frame on the playhead. There's instances where he does things like giving the keyboard shortcut for one action, and the in the next sentence fails to give it for the next related action and instead says only to use the menu command. This should always be consistent.

Ok I grant you he may have been on a windows machine when he wrote this and I use a Mac. I'll further grant you he may have written this on a Beta version. But this book suffers from the person who wrote it being too familiar with the program when he's explaining it, bad proofreading and sloppy editing. The publisher should have sat some complete novices down in front of a computer with the text in hand and have them run through it. I always make notes in manuals when something isn't clear or is documented wrong and this one has lots of notes. The other books in this series, and I have 4, do not.

Once you start reading you will be taken involuntarily to go page by page without realizing. Flash CS4: The Missing Manual has a singular style and flow and I recommend to other programming books take some note.
Chris Grover with E.A Vander Veer divides this chef d'oeuvre in three great parts and here I will try anticipating just a little ...
Part One: you will learn about Flash in a simple, however complete, way. The book starts with an amazing interface overview. It shows how to customize the workspace, it does a presentation of each panel and tool inside the program and you can see how to do easily, if you are new in this world, your first drawings in the Flash and give life to them.
Part Two: beginners will be able to incorporate complexity to their projects and Flash knowledgeable designers will ripen their adeptness. This part we take a look in drawing and animation important concepts. Fast and clearly we expand our learning comprehending the new features of this software version. Now we can include audio and video into our realistic animations.
Part Three: you will say to the world I really can also do it ... Learn how to improve the application with the power of the ActionScript 3.0, the Flash programming language. Evidently, this book doesn't go into as much depth on it, but you will realize that is not so difficult to go beyond. I could understand a lot of little things and appreciate details that really are an exceptional aspect in this paperback.
It's, actually, a very interesting reference even for experts and, indeed, The book that should have been in the box.

I want to start by saying that I do agree with many of the reviews that have been written. I think it boils down to what you are expecting to get from a book. Becoming a Flash developer requires more practice and effort than any book can provide (simply by reading through once). You read books like these to help get you pointed in the right direction. That is where this book succeeds nicely. It covers many of the major aspects of Flash development and provides more than just a beginner's tutorial. I have been developing in Flash for 6 months and I still learned quite a few tricks and shortcuts that I did not previously know. I keep this book on my desk at work, when I have questions about the environment or when I want straight-forward examples on how to do things. Is it not perfect - not by any means but I think it is worth checking out.

If you are new to Flash and you want a shorter read, then I would recommend a book like "Teach Yourself Flash CS4 Professional in 24 Hours". You will get a good introduction to the Flash IDE and how to use it to build movies. You just won't go in depth too much. If you only want to read one book, I would recommend this book. It is a good starting point and covers many things a little deeper. In addition - if you plan on programming ActionScript, I would highly recommend "Essential ActionScript 3.0" by Colin Moock. If you want to program in ActionScript 3.0, make this your reference. You won't regret it.

The missing manual series is a great set of books very detailed on how Flash works and how to use it to create your animation projects. Not for the beginer this is a more advanced book.

I'm a big fan of O'Reilly Media's programming books anyway, but this one seems even better than most. Whether you're a brand new beginner or an established programmer just looking to expand your repertoire, this book is clear and concise, telling you everything you need to know and giving you a solid groundwork to build on in your Flash experience. I personally like to pair the O'Reilly book with a matching Teach Yourself Visually book for quick reference, so I've always got as much or as little information as I need. Either way, the Missing Manual is not a disappointment and I encourage anyone considering it to go for it!

This book was written as a hands-on walkthrough on how to use Flash CS4. The parts where you did hands-on practice with the included files were good, but much of the book had no hands-on examples. Rather, it was just a bunch of text explaining how to do something assuming you were in need of doing it. It was simply not helpful; the book should have had hands-on examples for all of the material it covered.

While this book does an excellent job of explaining most components of Flash and Actionscript for beginners, it does not include lessons on accessibility. It does provide links to other places to learn about accessibility, but the book fails to provide even a basic lesson on making flash files accessible for the visually impaired. If the book had not left out this important element, I would have given it five stars.