Customer Reviews

How To Do Everything with Macromedia Flash 5

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I can't really say that this book is "bad", although I can say that I did not find it at all useful so I returned it. This book falls under the category of a "project oriented how-to" style book as opposed to a "reference" style book (see my review of "Foundation Flash 5"). If you are a total beginner and are looking for a book to hold your hand while you learn new concepts, this book does that. You work on little "projects" that demonstrate different techniques and tools. The title of the book is a big exaggeration (you could also say blatant lie), as almost everything here is basic.

The problem is if you are not a beginner. This is NOT a reference or advanced book. If you have a question (about something simple) and need the answer to it, you can't just look it up in the index and turn to the page. You will find yourself on step 26 (or whatever) of a larger project that you'd have to trace back to the beginning and follow up until that point. Sometimes this isn't a big deal as nothing here gets TOO complex, but I found it frustrating how brief some explanations were and always closed the book and looked up the problem in one of the many other excellent reference books ("Flash 5 Bible", "Flash 5 Visual Quickstart" [1st & Advanced editions]). The ActionScript section is particularly light and glosses over many concepts without REALLY explaining them. You really don't venture too far from the "Basic" actions.

Again, to learn from point "A", this book has it's merit (although I personally liked "Foundation Flash 5" better). The price certainly is right. You couldn't really LEARN the program from scratch by reading the "Flash 5 Bible" or any other "reference" book. You would probably want a project oriented "how-to". I didn't like this one. And for what it's worth, the picture on the cover of the annoying clean-cut boy with the lipstick irritated me to no end as it is also the 1st page of every chapter. Puleese! Isn't Flash about graphics? Add a half star if cornyness doesn't bother you.

This is by the far the best book on the market today covering concepts that are clearly explained, with examples that precisely illustrate the "how to" and "why" things are done. It covers pertinent information for the avid Flash professional and makes for a handy reference manual, aside from the fact that it's a "must have" for the Flash beginner as well. This book is extremely well written and its coverage of the object oriented ActionScript is filled with examples that make its concepts easy to grasp. Finally, a book that sticks to Flash and isn't crammed with hundreds of pages of topics that have nothing to do with Flash or its concepts.

This book is outstanding. Not only does the author write in laymen's terms but she also explains with detail those features of Flash which are most pertinent to the end user. It's easy to understand the functionality of this popular and powerful program in the hands of Bonnie Blake. Her graphics background clearly comes into play with this book and enhances the readability for those designers out there.Her style is easy-going and easy-flowing and her humor is injected in just the right places and right ways to make this heavy subject simple to digest and use. Thank you, Bonnie, for the gem that stands out as one-of-a-kind in the haystack of too many mediocre books written on Flash!

Before reading this book I was struggling with Flash. Thanks to the author's thorough coverage of the software and the helpful tutorials, I am now able to create professional looking Flash movies. The book is well written and easy to understand. I keep it within arm's reach whenever I'm working with Flash. I can highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to master all the features of Flash.

I bought the Flash Bible 5 because I needed a backup for the Flash manual (which is terrible). The Bible did not answer many questions I had and it also has a lot of irrelevant things in it. The How To book on the other hand, answers many of the questions that the Flash manual and the Bible do not talk about. So I recommend this How To "Everything" book to people who are looking for answers to Flash questions.

May be the worst book on Flash I've ever picked up. After reading this you could hardly expect to do anything with Flash but the basics rather than "everything" the text's title implies. A poor primer which can be quickly outgrown and never used again. Please note I was required to give it one star.

No my friends, this book is just blah, blah, blah, with just a few pictures. I ordered the book based on all the good reviews, but the book is AWFUL! There are better books on the market.

This book is outstanding. As a Flash educator,it's difficult to wade through the myriad of books out there. I needed something that was step-by-step and intuitive and easy to read and follow and accomplish projects. This book does it all and offers a plethora of resources for source code, web sites offering much, much helpful information. The author wrote a sound, knowledgeable book that is easy to understand and use. These are the operative words!

Despite the author's impressive credentials, I found this book to be poorly written. Despite the incessant mention of careful planning when using Flash, the author didn't seem to plan well herself. The chapters often tend to veer off topic, and the explanations are excessively wordy and often ambiguous or unclear. The useful content of this book could be easily condensed into one about 1/4 the size. There are also numerous mistakes throughout the book. While this is not uncommon in technical books these days, one would think that somebody would sit down and actually read the book before it is published. The code examples, which must be downloaded from the publisher's web site, often don't match up with the text. This as well as the errors and typos can make it very confusing to somebody actually trying to learn something. In addition, despite the glossy, colorful cover, this is a one-color book. Several times, there are references to color in the figures as if the book was originally intended to be printed with color examples. If you want a wordy, haphazard guide to Flash with poor direction and basic content get this book. If you're starting from scratch and want to learn how to do everything with Flash, look elsewhere.

I bought this book based on all of the good reviews but I am dissapointed. The information is good but if your goal is to teach someone how to use a design program, you have to show some graphics on it! The book is 90% text and 10% graphics and screenshots. I agree with the other reviews: the book is by far better than the manual but I think it could be better. It even has no companion CD, you have to download the files from their site and it's a little difficult to find them. If you really want to create something interesting and useful, I recommend 'Macromedia Flash for Windows and Mac 5 Visual Quickstart Guide' by Katherine Ulrich, which is cheaper and better.