Customer Reviews

Flash 5 Dynamic Content Studio (with CD ROM)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While the idea behind the Friends of Ed series is admirable and useful - that is, to cover the broad and expansive areas of Flash development that are not so well documented elsewhere - the books so far have been spoiled by the inconsistent quality of their ActionScript.

Too often, I get the feeling that authors that have been invited to contribute have simply re-worked a pre-existing project - and this all too often includes (the usual) hacks and workarounds which all of us use when faced with deadlines. Bits and pieces of Flash4 ActionScript creep in every now and again - and occassionally the authors seem to be entirely unaware of new methods introduced in Flash5 that make their workarounds obsolete (the onClipEvent for loaded data is one example - see Chapt 9 of this book to learn how to do it the *old* way).

Furthermore, the tutorials often lack focus - as though the editors can't decide where to pitch the level of instruction: so that some hard-core ActionScript is often mixed-in with superfluous detail about how to build the interface for the tutorial example.

Anyway, my advice if you really want to *learn* ActionScript for yourself - and also avoid the mistakes, hacks and workarounds that plague the Friends of Ed books - put Phillip Kerman's excellent "ActionScripting in Flash" together with Colin Moock's "ActionScript: The Definitive Guide" on your desk - you'll never look back.

Content Studio would be a good book if it went into more depth on the topics detailed inside. Dynamic Studio tries to do too much. You will find that the book will give you a general understanding of a topic but this will then need to be followed up with some more detailed research (which to me defeats the purpose of buying the book in the first place!).

I have also noticed that all the 'Friends of Ed' publications are rather repetitive of each other. If you buy the whole set of books you will see recurring examples, explanations and ideas frequently, especially in regards to the Action Scripting Topics. Again, as detailed in my review on 'Foundation Actionscripting' by Sham Bhangal in the same series, I would suspect they are selling more on appearance rather than content.

Do not even attempt to buy Dynamic Studio if you think it will help you design a fully functional dynamic Flash site. All the book will do will introduce technologies that you could use to build such a site and give brief examples on their use.

Since I teach Flash, I buy most of the Flash how-to books the minute they're published.

Of all the current batch of books covering ActionScript, this is the one I'd recommend to anyone wanting to delve into the more advanced aspects of programming. The examples contain not only step by step descriptions, but clear explanations of the WHY of the process.

Well worth the money!

I am a graphic/web designer by design. Programming of any type is a struggle for me. Just as I started getting Flash 4 ActionScripting down pat they went and changed the syntax on me. Ive been through the whole collection of "Friends Of Ed" books yet none have been as clear and easy to understand as Dynamic Content Studio. This book covers all the important topics in a way that makes it easy for the logically challenged, such as myself, to understand. The examples are, for the most part, simple but offer a lot in the way of showing you what can be done and how to do it.

I have been using ASP to create dynamic Flash content for about a year now, and have struggled the whole way. This book makes everything a little clearer and offers you logical solutions for common procedures to help streamline your code, making life a little easier.

Great book, I highly recommend it!

This is one of the best books you would ever find on dynamic flash that is if you find any other book on that topic.First there are very limited books on individual topics like generator or asp-flash but this books goes a step ahead and collaborates all the aspects of dynamic studio .chapters like ultradev,generator,asp-flash and Flash-turbine .A must read for all those people who are interested in making dynamic websites.They should refer to this book as it would make their work very easy.The book starts off by taking into consideration that the reader is a beginer and then graduates to more advanced topics.

Hats off !! to all those who made this book possible as this book is goin to be there for a long time to come.

An excellent book! Well worth the investment! It transitions well from more basic concepts to more complex topics -- With lots of substance for people at all levels of experience. Even those with more expertise can learn a thing or two from the different conceptual approaches presented. The book is not just about "here's how to do the same old boring X, Y & Z, just in the updated version of Flash", it also says "here's some different ways of thinking about solutions that takes greater advantage of new features of Flash". I also really enjoyed the mini math and geometry lessons... it's good to know that years of high school algebra and geometry could be put to some use!

The interface design chapters were particularly outstanding; judging by how awful so many Flash sites are at integrating interactivity, PLEASE!! I BEG YOU!!! everybody read the chapters on designing interfaces! They are a "must read" for anyone who wants to improve their site's interactivity.

The game design chapters are also incredibly helpful as well, and I think are some of the first useful explanations of game design I've ever seen for Flash. Even if you're not designing games in Flash, using a familiar game like Asteroids as a vehicle for explaining some pretty clever design elements works very well. Not to mention, it's very cool to be able to make your own video games! Flash isn't just for dull corporate websites anymore!

I'll be incorporating the lessons learned from those chapters into all the stuff I do... even though I only get to do very boring stuff for a corporate site. And if I use what this book teaches, maybe someday I can get hired to make games and do cool interfaces!!! :)

I've been looking for a books for backend for over a year now. This is the PHP, ASP, PERL, JavaScript, Generator, PHP Turbine dream book! 1000 pages of MUST-KNOW knowledge for the serious flash designer/developer. The PHP section is what I've been searching for for months as I've been stumbling through integration for a month now.

This will become the "BIBLE for BACKEND" (sounds sexual, I guess) Flash. Flash IS the future. This is the book I will refer to most for the next year... guaranteed. my "most advised purchase" to date for Flash Developers. Better than Flash 5 Magic at describing Backend application integration.

This will set you apart from the hacks.

I've been programming for many years. ActionScript doesn't look like anything new to me. That's the perspective I'm coming from, anyway.
If you think the same way, this is a reasonably good book and here's why: it gives you an instant immersion - like being thrown in the middle of a swimming pool. The book lets you look over people's shoulders while they explain what they're doing. The book doesn't hold your hand so don't expect it. There definitely is inconsistency in the depth of coverage. Some things are glossed over while others are heavily documented. I wasn't looking for a college textbook, though.
Client/Server transaction is covered like no other book I've found. That's what I wanted out of it. I stole bits and pieces and put together a proof-of-concept in one day. I know now that Flash can do what I want. The book paid for itself in saved time.
As a plus, I saw things in the book that I might want to do later... if I can find the time.
Don't expect to learn ActionScript itself with this book if you don't already have a solid foundation in C++ or Java. Knowledge of VB or its ilk will give you some footing.

This is quite a thing. It's definately the first 1000+ book on using Flash with database-driven content. It's great that you get a thousand pages and more than a dozen authors for your fifty bucks. But what you get in size you lose in depth.

There's probably something for everyone here: using Flash with ASP, Perl, PHP, and ColdFusion. There are sections on Access, mySQL, and basic database design. If that's not enough you get some Flash games programming and a quite good appendix about object-oriented-programming in Flash (available as a sample chapter at the publisher's website).

Trouble is, there's something for everyone here. Do Flash developers really need to know all those server-side languages? Most of the chapters cover the same techniques for formatting data for Flash, albeit using the different languages above. Without a guiding idea that would structure the book as a series of concepts that build on each other, the book comes across as a series of remixes of the same basic thing: Perl scrips that search a database and return a urlencoded set of values, ASP scripts that search a database and return a urlencoded set of values, ColdFusion scripts that search...and so on. There's enough here on server-side programming to make you dangerous, but there's a reason that Perl (or ASP or PHP) books themselves can run a thousand pages.

There are some exceptions: coverage of both Flash ASP Turbine and Macromedia Generator break up the sameness of the book, and the section on XML looks good. But some of the other chapters seem out of place: some ho-hum "interfaces that move around" chapters and two chapters about building space-shoot-em-up games.

It's too bad that there's really nothing that teaches you the _really_ hard thing: how to design for the experience of continuous interaction with changeable, remote data. Not the technical stuff like adding a text box that gets filled with "UserName," but what you might want to say to "UserName" and what she might want to do with all that data anyway.

This is my third Friends of Ed book for Flash, and let me say that this is the best one yet. I just got it yesterday, and I can't stop readingit. It's 1000 pages, and covers everything about using dynamic content with flash. Loads of examples, tutorials, screenshots. Get ready to roll up your sleeves and dive in head first! Explains everything with detail. If you've ever wanted to know how to add dynamic content to Flash, this is the book to have.