Customer Reviews

Flash 5 Visual JumpStart

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After reading the entire book and doing the exercises, I, with no prior Flash experience, was able to produce an intial, flawed Flash movie. But compared to the Dummies book (which I wish I had started with), this one has a paucity of examples (and like the writing style, impress as pedestrian).

Surprisingly, this book spends way too much time on drawing fundamentals ("let's draw a house" -- why?!), and details every menu choice with precious little in the way of context, examples and application. More a dictionary than a story.

The Glossary was helpful, but I found the green type and green illustrations used throughout the book to be eyesores. And the very few sample Flash movies on the CD struck me as overly cutesy in concept--while being neither attractive nor imaginative--and more annoying than inspiring....

Flash 5 Visual JumpStart is a pretty good beginner's book for Flash 5. It teaches the basics like a high school text book, which may be too basic for professionals. My biggest issue with the book is the quality of the samples. They seem thrown together by a person with little artistic skill and a large collection of clip art. The color samples in the middle of the book are very amateurish, and I just can not see how anyone would be inspired by them.

If you are a beginner, have poor eyesight and want to learn Flash from scratch, this may be the book for you. Professionals should stick to other Flash books.

this book looked easy to understand at the bookstore. but the truth is only the fonts and green icons are easy to view. its content is below average and many terms are explained like a substitute professor with little bit of understanding teaches at a college. Check this book instead; Macromedia Flash 5 Design: From Concept to Creation(ISBN: 0761527524)

Michael August (mncaugust@home.com), a musician from Oceanside, Ca. Flash 5 Visual Jump start is a very easy to follow and informative book. The structure is outlined with easy to understand text, and pictures to make it fool-proof. What I also liked about it was the termanology used was great, especially for a non-computer animator like myself. I've checked out other so called easy to follow programs, and I like this one the BEST! If your looking to start animating, and have little to no experience, pick this one up!

Let's assume you are an ambitious Internet entrepreneur or you would like to make e-commerce a priority in your future plans. Today it has become almost essential to get a presence in cyberspace to present your products, service or anything inbetween. What you need to acomplish this task is, you guessed it, a Web site. Sybex can help you on this road to success with its latest offering of Flash (TM) 5 Visual JumpStart (TM). It is an extremely well-written book for beginners as well as intermediate PC users, that teaches you how to create and apply FLASH as an integral part of Web site development. Flash has come into its own as a component of innovative and exciting sites that employ Flash features. They can greatly improve the cuccess of marketing products or services on the Internet to customers worldwide. This handy 300+ page procedural reference book helps you make the most of your learning this technique. What exactly is Flash? A bandwidth-friendly and browser- independent vector-graphic animation technology. When different browsers are equipped with the necessary plug-ins, Flash animations will look the same on all of them. With Flash, users can draw their own animations or import other vector-based images. Since the Flash format is vector-based (Vector graphics are made of lines and curves defined by mathematical objects called vectors) an image can be easily resized or magnified without losing sharpness because this format is resolution independent. Flash animation can only be created using the Flash animation application from Macromedia Inc. Until 1997 Flash was known as FutureSplash , when Macromedia Inc. bought the company that developed it. The author of this magnificently executed work, Patricia Hartman of Fallbrook, California, shows her knowledge of Web design and relates her explanations flawlessly and in an easy-to-understand language. Not only is this book a must-read for anyone interested in designing Web pages but the also included CD companion with software applications by Macrmedia, Inc, that also contains all movies featured in tis book, makes it a complete learning experience.

Michael August (mncaugust@home.com), a musician from Oceanside, Ca. Flash 5 Visual Jumpstart is very easy to follow and informative book. Each instruction is outlined in easy to understand text, with pictures to make it fool-proof. What I also liked about it was the termanology used was great, especially for a non-computer animator like myself. I've checked out other so called easy to follow programs, and I like this one the BEST! If your looking to start animating, and have little to no experience, pick this one up!