Customer Reviews

Flash MX Magic (3rd Edition) (Magic (New Riders))

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

There are only two thing that a training manual has to accomplish: 1) Give step by step instructions on how to reach a goal and 2) Make sure those instructions are correct. This book fails miserably on both counts.

I only recommend this book if you're the sort of person who buys cool-looking books and sets them on the shelf, hoping your friends will see them, think you actually read it, and be impressed. However, since I like my books to actually be useful -- and in the very least FULLY FUNCTIONAL -- you can imagine my disappointment with "Flash MX Magic."

Time to give some concrete examples. I thought I'd try working through chapter 3 - Preloading. After typing in several lines of ActionScript, I noticed that some code listed in later steps were supposed to be placed inside the brackets of a previously defined function. You aren't instructed to do this in the text, but by loading up the example file I realized the error. Even still, when it came time to test my code, it didn't work.

Realizing that this could just be my mistake, I decided to move on to Chapter 5 - Immersive Panorama. I thought I'd look at the completed project on the CD first to see what I could expect to accomplish. Supposedly this project will teach you how to create a movie in which parallax is simulated in a landscape scrolling to the right. Several different layers move at different speeds, giving an illusion of depth. So what happens when you view their pre-prepared finished product? The absolute background moves, and everything else stays perfectly still. Who releases a book with malfunctioning examples!?!

I went to the NewRiders website to see if these issues had been addressed. What did I find? A ZIP file to download all the missing files necessary to complete the lesson -- not in Chapter 5 -- but in chapter 14, without which the entire chapter is WORTHLESS.

New Riders brags, "Isn't this just about the first Flash MX book released?" Maybe so, but that's no accomplishment. Since the book doesn't appear to have even been error-checked, I guess attempting to release it first was the only goal in publishing it. Here's a tip: Books aren't software. You can't release a patch. That's why you find at least ONE PERSON and have them actually WORK THROUGH THE BOOK to make sure it functions before publishing it. Try it sometime.

This book is decent...but leaves a lot to be desired. The cd that comes with the book includes source files to work on the different chapter projects...but it does not contain final versions of them....so you'd reason that they would be on the flashmxmagic website for download....that seems to have "magically" disappeared as well. Instead of rushing to publish this book so it would come out close to the release of Flash MX, the publishers should have made sure the website was up and that the cd contained final source files rather than demos of other macromedia software. This book is alright, but if you really want something intuitive, I'd recommend waiting until Phillip Kerman's Actionscripting in Flash comes out in July...or buying his book on Flash 5 actionscripting.

I've been developing sites for over 5 years now. I don't know if that makes me an expert, as there is always something to learn, but I know a good book when I see and use one, and this is not it.

When I am given a project to follow along with, I need clear instructions that make sense. This book doesn't have them.

When I am given code to dissect, I need to make sure it works before hand. This book doesn't have it.

When I am given "final" examples, they should work. Heck, the example animations even play backwards in this book.

Don't waste your money. New Riders should be ashamed of putting this garbage on the market.

This is just another book in the series of the greatest copy and paste codes Flash book, if you're a fan of the last 2 books, I guess you will enjoy this. Anyone familiar with actionscripting should get something out of this book, provided you have a decent knowledge and patience to go through tutorials that are full of inconsistency in codes or lack of explanation. The reason I feel this book is rushed out of the door is apparent even from the first chapter, check out pg 10. The first set of scripts with two functions, setValues() and setAnimation(), only the second one is used, yet they printed out on the page, and leave no comments on the source file. This can mislead many readers that bought this book that want to learn the new Flash MX actionscripts. I find useful tutorials, but lack of detailed explanation. You're better off buying "Macromedia Flash MX ActionScripting: Advanced Training from the Source", which is an excellent book for the first generation of the FLash MX books out now. Again, slapping some well known authors and rushed the book out is always been the practice for this series, take your chances.

I have been designing Web sites for years, and was a Network Engineer for years before that. This book is well written and talks about great examples, but it doesn't work. I know Flash. I know a bit about Flash Action Scripting, but I have not been able to get one single script to work correctly. You shouldn't have to read a second book just to get the one you bought to work right. Like someone else said, even the finished examples don't work right, so you can't look at that code to see what's wrong.
I expect much more than that from any book, and I would return this book if I still could. I spent too much time thinking I was doing something wrong to be able to return it now, though.
In summary, buy another book. You will probably be happier.

The only thing magical about this book is how quickly it made my hard-earned money disappear! Before I delve into the many, many problems with this book I want to make one thing perfectly clear: anyone who has given this a positive review either works for the company or has not yet tried to follow the projects. As others have pointed out, the only merit in these 300 pages is the style with which they are presented.

A week after getting this in the mail and I am still scratching my head. How on Earth could any publishing company, let alone one as well-known in this field as New Riders, allow something this incomplete to go to print?!

The code in the book is either incomplete or downright incorrect. A third of the "completed" project files on the accompanying CD do not even load, and a good number of the others do not function properly! It takes a few days for a competent team of proofreaders and beta testers to ensure there are no printed or scripting errors, but it takes less than 60 seconds to launch the 15 .swf project files to make sure they actually work!

Mistakes happen, right? Perhaps, but when you don't even back up the work with corrected files and a complete errata on the homepage, what can be said about that?! ... The New Riders site is no better.

I don't know what everyone else paid for this, but it cost me "alot of" Canadian "dollars", plus 15% taxes. Never again...

The book looks good but can be frustrated to work with. I bought it last week and was working up to chapter 3 when I realized that the ActionScript codes supplied from the book did not work at all. I've had good experirence with New Riders with great books such as 'Flash Web Design, The Art of Motion Graphic' by Hillman Curtis. But this time, I'm very disappointed with this Flash MX Magic. ...

I had trouble with this book. The instructions were hard to understand and the examples didn't start from the beginning. The action script was already done for you and there were bugs in some of them. Not for beginners! If you have none or even little knowledge of flash forget about his book. It's not for you!

The CD that comes with the book did not have the supporting files for the lessons. Opps!

There are no Source-Code Files added on the CD. Without that Files it is very difficult to complete the lessons, especially because there are isn't everything correct in the book. Additional to that the SWF Files added on the unkind designed CD are completely useless, because they don't work and some files are missing that are important for the SWF's to work. I looked at [the web site] and the Project Files downloadable from there are useless as the ones on the CD provided with the book. To the book: The book itself is written in a clearly and easily style. If you are new to flash but almost have written one or two lines of code in java or any other language it will be no problem to get through the book, if there was not the file-issue i described. The design of the book is very undkind and there are too many white blank spaces. This spaces would have better been filled with a good reference. But there's no refernce at all.

In my opinion the book was published for A) money making B) something cool to show-off with for the editors on their webpage as 2advanced did for example. Don't get me wrong, i appreciate the style and high skill from 2advanced but i do not appreciate with the style and the spare knowledge imparted to the reader.

Summary: bought, opened, closed, sold again. Thank god for the amazon marketplace. This book is no longer my property. I'll will spend the money wiser next time, "friends of ed" - books.