Customer Reviews

Foundation Actionscript 3.0 with Flash CS3 and Flex

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I find that one of the hardest things about picking up a tech book is determining the book's target audience, i.e. what do the authors assume you already know? Personally, I've been a programmer for the last 10 years and have been tasked with learning ActionScript as part of a new project. When I started looking at books on the subject, I couldn't find very many AS books that were aimed at developers only without going to a reference manual. I suppose this is a function of AS being intimately related to Flash, but that's just where I was coming from. In the end, I picked up this book because it covered AS and Flex, which I am also picking up.

Before I say anything else, its important to realize that ActionScript 3.0 has a massive API, so it will be almost impossible to do lots of work with it without using a language reference. Anyone learning AS should be prepared for this.

Overall the book is a good one. It does a very solid introduction of the language, including a good overview of object-oriented programming. Maybe it was because I already understood 90% of the concepts, but I found most of AS pretty easy to pickup. Most of the examples are from Flash, which makes it a tad confusing at times if you don't already know Flash. Most of them are not that difficult, so its not insurmountable, however. I had to ask a few questions of some friends who are flash guys to make a few things make sense, but thats not the end of the world. Flex is really only touched on at the end of the book, and its Flex 2 at that.

So, here's my .02 on the target audience issue I mentioned. I would recommend this book to any Flash developer looking to learn ActionScript, or to a programmer from some other OO language (like Java) that knows some Flash and wants to learn AS. It will definitely get you going in the right direction, and when combined with the reference I mentioned will give you a solid foundation. If you are a developer looking to learn AS and/or Flex, I wouldn't recommend this book. There are better books out there that don't require as much Flash knowledge. Its a good book, just not the right one for me.

Boy I was loving this book until chapter 7.

The Video project in that chapter is pretty complex, although the author (Sean McSharry - author of Chaps 7 & 8) keeps telling you what a simple example it is. Sadly, in chapter 7 there are several typos and some that I *think* are typos but can't be sure of. The downloaded source didn't work either. I switched the publish settings from 'Adobe AIR Player' to 'Flash Player 9' and that worked while I was at work. However, my files that I've created while at home (my 2nd attempt at getting this to work)are not responding to the same fix. I've spent hours looking at the book and my code and his source with no luck. There is a book site with an errata, but there isn't really anything there that helps with this issue.

That's the bad news. The good news is that up until that chapter, I was following everything and everything worked as it was presented in the book.

That said, if you want to pick this book ONLY to gain understanding of the capabilities of Video in AS 3 (I don't know why you would...maybe you like to throw money away at a whole book for one chapter, what do I know?)- I'd skip this and find some good tutorials online on the subject.

I'm in this book till the end as I'm using it to prepare for my Flash CS3 cert and I feel like, in general, it's helping me. I also tore through Friends of Ed's Foundation Actionscript for Flash 8.

Bottom Line: Flawed but worth the money if you want to put the effort into it.

Like most of the friends of ED books on Flash and ActionScript, this book by Steve Webster, Todd Yard and Sean McSharry is a good book for the novice. Most beginner's books on ActionScript cover just the basics such as variables, loops and functions and don't go much further. However in this book, the authors go one step further and help the readers to extend their ActionScript skills for both Flash and Flex.

The authors first discuss the development process for building an ActionScript project and dissect a simple bouncing ball example. The next chapter covers ActionScript fundamentals including variables, data types and constants. As you move on to objects, classes, inheritance and other aspects of OOP, you take a look at a sample iPod project.

The most interesting topics for me are the visual aspects of Flash. The authors cover everything from the Display list to movie playback. But they don't stop there. Next, they delve into the Graphics class and the drawing API. As you build a drawing application, you learn the essentials such as how to use ActionScript to draw line strokes and shape fills.

Next, you learn the aspects necessary for building interactivity in Flash including events, listeners and the event flow. You apply this knowledge of event handling to build a video player and along the way learn about displaying and controlling video in Flash. Moving on to audio, you build an MP3 audio player.

One of the most important aspects of any programming language is the ability to streamline a project or projects with reusable code. In Flash, that means components. The authors cover components starting with building a framework for UI and video components to skinning the finished components.

Now you are ready for advanced topics such as regular expressions, XML and E4X parsing. Over the last few chapters, you build an RSS reader application in both the Flex 2 SDK and Flex Builder 2. Then, you expand the functionality of this RSS reader with ActionScript.

Steve Webster works as a developer at Yahoo and has contributed to several Flash-related books. Todd Yard is a software architect at Brightcove in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has contributed to several Flash-related books. Sean McSharry is an Adobe Certified Flash Developer and Designer and a prerelease tester for many Adobe products.

I've benefited a lot from the user reviews on Amazon.com so I figured I should contribute and give back. I have no association with the authors or the publisher. I purchased this book after reading the reviews on Amazon. I am a programmer with

experience in Java, PHP, C#, JavaScript, ASP, Visual Basic, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL Server, and now ActionScript 3.0!

"Foundation ActionScript 3.0 with Flash CS3 and Flex" by Steve Webster, Todd Yard, and Sean McSharry is a very good book. It is definitely worth the price. The authors provide interesting facts that make the book interesting to read. For

example, did you know that ActionScript 3.0 is based on ECMAScript Edition 4? This fact is not going to make you a better programmer but they do make the reading more interesting. The authors have a good sense of humor. They inject

some funny lines to make the reading less boring. Let's face it technical books can be very dry. The humor makes the reading a lot less dry. Here's a sample:

"So, far you've created an IPod class and creaetd an instance of it, but we've already discovered that it's completely useless as it is. It's like an annoying socialite factory capable of churning out an endless parade of celebrity wannabes who are

famous just for being famous, despite being completely devoid of both substance and talent...."

"Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes -- properties."

This book targets novice ActionScript 3.0 programmers and designers. There seems to be two camp of Flash users: designers and programmers. You can do quite a lot with Flash using only the time line, scene(s), resources in the Library

(movies, graphics, buttons,...), and some simple scripts. However, the real power of Flash is harnessed with the use of ActionScript 3.0. This book is targeted to those individuals who want to move beyond just using the Flash IDE to lay out

their Flash project.

I have one warning. The book covers Flex 2. Flex 3 was recently released. I'm sure the concepts are applicable to Flex 3 but the newer features of Flex 3 are obviously not covered. Hopefully a new editon of this book will cover Flex 3. If you

plan to use Flash CS3 to program ActionScript then this is a mute point. The authors state that the book is geared more towards Flash CS3 ActionScript 3.0 programming with bonus coverage of Flex ActionScript 3.0 programming. Flex 2 does

support ActionScript 3.0.

I highly suggest you read the help files that come with Flash CS3 before you read this book. You should know about timelines, frames, movies, scenes,...before you read this. Get the basic concepts out of the way first.

I know I will be looking at other Friends of ED books after reading this book. I will be a life long fan of Friends of Ed if any other there other books are as good as "Foundation ActionScript 3.0 with Flash CS3 and Flex".


Chapter 1 walks the user through the creation of a simple application to demonstrate the power of ActionScript 3.0. This is a demonstration chapter and not a detailed tutorial based chapter. Type in the code and watch the movie execute. The

author promises to clear up any questions later.

Chapters 2 and 3 get into the grit of ActionScript 3.0's syntax and object oriented programming. These are the hardest chapters for a person not exposed to OOP. If you have C++, Java, C#, or worked with OOP before then this chapter is a

quick review. Don't skip the chapters, though, if you have previous OOP experience. For example, the implicit getter/setter methods are not available to Java. C# and Visual Basic programmers will be familiar with this syntax.

Chapters 4 throug 11 are mini exercises that introduces the reader to ActionScript 3.0 in action. Each excercise is well written. You can also download the source code if you don't want to type in the code examples. I suggest you actually

type in the code. It reinforces your learning. Take time to read the code and actually understand it. Your knowledge about ActionScript 3.0 will be vastly different by the time you complete the chapters.

You knowledge will then be put to the test in chapter 12. Actually, your knowledge will be re-inforced as you build an application that ties all of lessons you completed in chapters 4 through 11.

Chapters 13 and 14 will quickly introduce you to Flex 2. I will probably purchase another Friends of Ed book for Flex 3 and ActionScript 3.0 programming.

I love this book. If you want to learning ActionScript 3.0 from the view point of Flash CS

This was not your typical dry reading tech book. The author did a great job of mixing humor into the writing, so that you did not feel like you were trudging through just to get to the end. To me, it helped the concepts stick in my head a little easier/better.

The key strength of this book is the breath of coverage that it provides the reader. The topics covered with definitely peak the interests of a developers who range from beginner Flashers to long-time professional Flex ninjas. Topics such as basic programing principals serves as the perfect foundation to steer new flash developers in the right direction. But it is the examples and real world applications (image loaders, mp3 players and rss xml integrations) that will continue to ignite the interests of developers and all levels and skills.

This is a must book for Flash designers/ who know only the basic of Flash and wants to put more "flash" into their graphics via AC3. I know nothing about programming but the author broke it down to a level I can understand. The author explains with examples and "this mean this" and "put this here" type of explanation. Pefect! True AS3 novices will have to get this one to expand their Flash knowlege! Finally!!

If you already know AS3 and know how to combine it with Flex and are looking for more advanced examples then do not get this book - get ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook. This book only shows you the basic things and the starting point of most of the examples in the book is either CS3 and Flex - AS3 is used like a helper method.

I've found this to be an excellent overview for programming in ActionScript - it's been a great help.

This is my first introduction to programing. The first few chapters of this book were brain busters. Chapter 4 gets a little nicer. The authors rhythm and sense of humor make it a little easier to get through the tedium of information.