Flash 8: The Missing Manual [Paperback]

E. A. Vander Veer (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0596101376 | ISBN-13: 978-0596101374 | Publication Date: March 29, 2006 | Edition: 1

Macromedia's Flash 8 is the world's premier program for adding animation to websites. And with the latest version, this popular program becomes more versatile, letting beginning webmasters and expert developers alike create sophisticated web content. But Flash isn't intuitive. And it doesn't come with a manual. Whether you want to learn the basics or unleash the program's true power, Flash 8: The Missing Manual is the ideal instructor.

This hands-on guide to today's hottest web design tool is aimed at nondevelopers, and it teaches you how to translate your ideas into great web content.

It begins with a solid primer on animation, which helps you get comfortable with the Flash interface. Once you have these basics under your belt, Flash 8: The Missing Manual moves on to advanced animations, including adding special effects and audio, video, and interactivity to your presentations. When you're really feeling steady, the book shows how to use a dollop of ActionScript to customize your content. It then teaches you how to publish your Flash creations for web surfers everywhere to enjoy. Along the way, the book shows you good design principles and helps you avoid elements that can distract or annoy an audience.

Author Emily Vander Veer has more than a dozen books to her credit, including titles on web design and scripting--most written for non-technical readers. Her background makes her the perfect author for a straightforward book on a complex subject. She takes Flash 8: The Missing Manual from the basics to the advanced, yet avoids a hasty jump into tough topics that can leave readers confused.

Not only will Flash 8: The Missing Manual help you turn a concept into unique, dynamic content, but it will continue to serve as a reference as you develop your website.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

E. A. Vander Veer has authored or edited fourteen books to date (including this fine tome). Her work has appeared in dozens of on- and offline publications, including Byte, The Writer, Salon.com, and CNN.com. Currently, she lives in Minnesota with her husband and daughter.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (March 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596101376
• ISBN-13: 978-0596101374
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,383,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FLASH ME!, August 26, 2006

By 

John R. Vacca "Tech Write Independent Reviewer" (Pomeroy, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flash 8: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

Are you a Webmaster who has given up in frustration because of distracting and annoying elements on your sites? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Emily A VanderVeer, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that explains all of the tools and shows you step-by-step how to create animations from scratch; as well as, why you want to do each step--in English, not programmer-ese.

VanderVeer, begins by guiding you through the creation of your very first Flash animation, from the first glimmer of an idea to drawing images, animating those images, and testing your work. Then, the author shows you how to manipulate your drawings by rotating, skewing, stacking, and aligning them; add color and special effects, and multimedia files such as audio and video chips; slash file size by turning bits and pieces of your drawings into special elements called symbols; and, create composite drawings using layers. Next, she shows you how to add ActionScript actions to frames to create automatic effects and to buttons to create audience-controlled effects. Finally, she focuses on testing, debugging, and optimizing your animation.

This most excellent book will show you tips and shortcuts for making Flash easier to work with; as well as, making your animations as audience-friendly as possible. More importantly, this book is designed for readers of every skill level except the super-advanced-programmer.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad at all., July 11, 2006

By 

Jonas Climent Belart "Younaz" (England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flash 8: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

The book dissapoint me at the begining because i consider the contents to be too soft, like totally for beginners, I thought "oh no, I just bought another "flash for dummies" sort of book, where you get told how to use tool by tool, but not how to put everything together, the keys of how to actually create a professional flash website. But I totally start to enjoy the book from episode 10 where the author explains how to control your animation with actionscript. It happen to be very clear and useful to me.So, yes, i would definetly recommend this book to everyone who wants to start to get into flash. Not for Medium-Expert users anyway.

However, the quality of the illustrations that are used as examples are of really poor quality. So if you are looking fordward see pretty graphics not purchase this book. And it's in black and white too.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Content, No Color Pages, June 30, 2006

By 

Daniel McKinnon "Dan" (Tewksbury, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Flash 8: The Missing Manual (Paperback)

As per usual, the Missing Manual line hits another solid ball with Flash 8: The Missing Manual, but this time it's not out of the park. Packing 14 chapters and nearly 450 pages with solid material and great writing like you would expect from this line, I cannot do anything but give five stars for the writing and instruction. Unfortunately, when one opens the book and finds that there isn't even a SINGLE color page in the entire text, this is big mistake. If this was a book that covered something like Word or Excel (except for any graphs that might be used) this might not be such a bad thing, but for something like Flash where the entire premise is flashy graphics, smooth animations and crisp, clean vector graphics, to not have any color at all is a mistake. If you want to use Flash you cannot go wrong with this book, but this major decision faux paux I consider a huge fumble and it's the only thing stopping me from giving my usual Missing Manual 5 star rating. Hopefully this can be improved in the 2nd edition or with Flash 9.

**** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED