Flash Enabled: Flash Design and Development for Devices [Paperback]

Phillip Torrone (Author), Branden Hall (Author), Glenn Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 14, 2002 | Series: Voices (New Riders)

Flash Enabled guides Flash designers & developers in creating content and applications for multiple devices with Flash and other tools. Focusing on the Pocket PC platform, this book also discusses considerations in developing Flash for set-top box systems, cell phones, and lays the foundation for devices such as the Palm. The book targets four main concepts: 1)design/development considerations, 2) creating content once & deploying to many platforms, (including info on using MM Generator to author content in Flash and serve it to Palm Pilots and cell phones that don't yet have Flash Players), 3) creating Flash content for Pocket PC, and 4) application development using Flash integrated with middle-ware. Throughout this book the authors provide guidelines, step-by-step tutorials, workflow, best practices, and case studies.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For many, interactive Flash content is viewed through a desktop computer connected to the World Wide Web. For a rapidly growing number of developers and users, though, Flash content goes way beyond the PC. In Flash Enabled: Flash Design & Development for Devices, a talented group of leading-edge Flash developers describe how to create compelling Flash content for everything from cell phones to TVs to ATMs and more.

Far more than a how-to book on Flash development, Flash Enabled takes the reader by the hand into previously uncharted areas of development. Samples, tutorials, and design rules, tips, and theories spanning more than a dozen chapters explain how to create content for PlayStation2, television, Pocket PC handhelds, and, of course, the Web.

The first two sections constitute an introduction to developing Flash content for devices. Discussions on interface design, typography, animation, and game construction are interlaced with sidebars, tips, screen shots, and code examples. Part three details the specifics of creating applications for devices using Flash, and subsequent sections demonstrate how to create content for television and game consoles like PlayStation2.

Contemporary developers face a big challenge when creating a Flash movie; making one that plays on every Web browser with every version of the Flash plug-in on every version of both Windows and Mac operating systems is a feat unto itself. Introducing more platforms with their own limitations is enough to send a Flash developer screaming into the woods. However, creating Flash content that can be viewed on more than just a desktop computer opens doors to growth and larger audiences. The authors of Flash Enabled have already started creating for a variety of platforms, and we can benefit from their experience rather than playing a perpetual game of catch-up. --Mike Caputo

From the Publisher

"Flash Enabled is an important book for any developer who is serious about the emerging world of Internet-connected, Flash-enabled devices." --Jeremy Allaire, Chief Technology Officer, Macromedia, Inc.

"Indispensable information for anyone developing Flash for devices. Flash Enabled provides start-to-finish coverage of the Flash device development process." --Colin Moock, author of "ActionScript: The Definitive Guide"

What can't you do with Flash? Still don't know that one. What started out as a logical idea for a guy like Phil Torrone--if anyone should be driving a book on enabled Flash, it's Phil, the industry's poster child for handheld evangelism--turned into a who's-who party of Flash and handheld experts, each contributing their own special strengths to this book.

(Take a minute, go to Google, and do a search on 'Phil Torrone', then read for a while. Don't forget to come back.)

Phil tagged with Mike Chambers, they outlined the book, and began talking to others in the inner circle of Flash development about the project. Next thing you know, Branden Hall, Robert Hall, Christian Cantrell, Andreas Heim, Craig Kroeger, Leo Leone, Markus Niedermeier, Bill Perry, Fred Sharples, and Glenn Thomas are on board. Special thanks to Greg Burch and to Troy Evans (Macromedia Flash Player PM) for technical reviews.

"Flash Enabled" is not a survey of "here's what could be really cool" about porting Flash off the desktop. It's the Reality. Here's what you CAN do NOW and here's HOW to DO IT. And yeah, there's some pretty tantalizing jumping-off points in here for the ambitious enabled-device Flash developers out there. We know you're there. We've talked to you at the conferences. You've interacted digitally with at least a couple of these authors, more than likely. This book's for you. The technology's right here, so let's have some fun. Cheers, Steve Weiss, executive editor, [e-mail]

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Product Details

• Paperback: 552 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 1st edition (May 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735711771
• ISBN-13: 978-0735711778
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,608,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book made us money - what more can we say?, December 2, 2002

By 

"thegoldcasino" (Principality of Sealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flash Enabled: Flash Design and Development for Devices (Paperback)

This might not be the sort of application the authors envisioned, but the book certainly helped us! We run a small online casino off the coast of Britain, TheGoldCasino (dot-com), and our development staff is fairly sparse (we're aimed primarily at users of e-gold, so we're not a big operation). We wanted to experiment with mobile games, but we assumed the cost would be prohibitive. Flash Enabled brought our current Flash developers from a state of knowing nothing about the PocketPC to having functional Flash-client prototypes in a shockingly short period of time! I don't know of higher praise for a book like this than: "It changed our business and made us money".

Obviously, it's not yet clear how large the universe of PocketPC gamers with e-gold accounts will be, but this book at least compressed our development time to the point where it is quite easy for our mobile games to be profitable. Great stuff!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm Flash Enabled, May 21, 2002

By 

"studiowhiz" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flash Enabled: Flash Design and Development for Devices (Paperback)

Wow .. a real who's who of the Flash world, gathered together to put pen to paper. For a long time I've wanted to sit and share a coffee with these guys, well now I can via this book.

There is SO much information in here that I'm going to have to read it again. Flash has always been a successful product, most people know this for the web, well this book shows you how to take flash to other devices, Pocket PC, WinCE, XBox, PS2, Cell Phones, Kiosks, ATM, HDTV, PDA and more.

Full of pictures, code examples, a site dedicated to the book. I'd recommend this book for ANY flash designer. They talk about optimisation, Pixel Fonts, good design practises and more.

Very well written, very easy to follow, and exciting...I found myself getting to the end of it and itching to start developing these things....

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars very little HOW and a lot of WHAT WILL BE, September 12, 2002

By 

G. Martinez "dangerahead" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Flash Enabled: Flash Design and Development for Devices (Paperback)

the GOOD and BAD:

First, THE BAD:
I want to make DVD menus with flash. I thought this would show me how, but instead it was a case study of a company called ... that used Flash and a C-Programmer made a connector from Flash to the DVD-OBJECT controller. no code for that. That ..... Don't buy it if that's what you hope to find.

Same with the Interactive Television stuff: Mainly a case study with no practical hows. Kind friggen lame.

There could have been a section on how to create 1 flash file that works on any handheld, desktop, etc. It would have been long, but there are those of us who bought the book and were really disappointed.
I think they were trying to publish the book before this one came out:

amazon.

BUT
Great Branden Hall stuff. that guy is who I want to be. He's amazing. other info on templates and stuff are excellent. top notch.

I'd wait and NOT get this book unless you walk into a bookstore and leaf through it.