Dan Livingston's Advanced Macromedia Flash Training Course, ActionScript in Action [CD-ROM]

Dan Livingston (Author)

Book Description

Series: Web Developers Training Course | Publication Date: December 18, 2001

Web designers live in a visual world -- and now there's a visual way to master ActionScript and advanced Flash 5 techniques: Dan Livingston's Advanced Macromedia Flash Training Course! Your personal instructor is Dan Livingston, the best-selling Web design author whose sites have earned awards from Yahoo! and USA Today. Watch as he creates Flash-based Web, e-commerce, and game applications right before your eyes -- and listen, as he explains every step. In 5+ hours of digital videos, you'll master everything from scripting fundamentals to debugging, controlling the Flash Player to using XML. Learn to build Smart Clips, create powerful effects, maximize usability, even link your movies to the outside world. Your CD-ROM contains all the source files you'll need to follow along. You also get a 250-page printed workbook, plus a complete eBook version of Livingston's ActionScript guide, Advanced Flash 5: ActionScript in Action -- accessible with one click from anywhere in the course. Practice with Exercises -- and extend your knowledge with the CD-ROM's extensive resource center, full of additional Flash links and readings.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Dan Livingston's Advanced Macromedia Flash Training Course: ActionScript in Action
ISBN: 0-13-067028-6

Master ActionScript now -- hands-on!

Already know the basics of working with Flash? Ready for the next step? Discover how to use ActionScript to build Flash movies and sites with unprecedented interactivity and power! Master ActionScript programming and other advanced Flash techniques by watching 30 digital desktop videos that provide over five hours of step-by-step instruction. No more boring textbooks: leading Flash developer Dan Livingston will show you what you need to know. You'll watch line-by-line analyses of ActionScript code examples -- and movies that show exactly what the code does. ActionScript has never been this visual -- or this easy!

A DIGITAL SEMINAR FROM ONE OF THE WORLD'S TOP FLASH WEB DESIGNERS!

• Master ActionScript the easy way, by watching 30 digital videos, straight from the desktop of expert Flash developer Dan Livingston -- more than five hours of personal instruction in all! Covers expert-level Flash 5 techniques! Scripting advanced effects; integrating multiple timelines, movie clips, and animations; using Smart Clips, and more!
• Bonus fully integrated electronic book: Advanced Flash 5: ActionScript in Action! This fully-integrated, book-length ActionScript course complements Dan Livingston's digital video instruction perfectly. It delivers outstanding guidance on a wide range of ActionScript techniques, from funky effects to XML integration!

Learn all this, and more

• Control: Expert techniques for controlling the Flash Player
• Timelines: Working with multiple timelines
• Smart Clips: Create clips that act on their own
• Integrate XML structured data into Flash applications
• Effects: Script elasticity, inertia, and other amazing effects
• E-Commerce: Build complete
• Games: Construct Flash games, start to finish
• Interactivity: Build multiple clips that interact with each other
• Debugging: Improve reliability and performance

SPECIALLY DESIGNED FOR

• Web designers who want to learn ActionScript fast—hands on!
• Flash users ready to build more sophisticated, interactive Flash content
• Expert Flash users upgrading to Flash
• Users of JavaScript, PHP, VBScript, and other scripting languages
• Windows and Macintosh users

Bonus! Workbook contains all of Dan Livingston's Advanced Flash 5 presentation slides—perfect for following along with the course from start to finish!

About Dan Livingston

Dan Livingston has handled Web design projects for a wide cross section of leading technology and business clients, including Apple, Novell, Pacific Bell, GoLive, Tut Systems, Quantum, and Lilly. His sites have garnered awards from Yahoo! and USA Today, been featured on CNN, been praised by the Los Angeles Times and lauded by human interface guru Donald Norman. Founder of Wire Man Productions, he is co-author ofEssential CSS and DHTML for Web Professionals, Essential Photoshop for Web Professionals, and Essential JavaScript for Web Professionals.

System Requirements

For Windows
300 MHz processor or higher
Windows 95/98/NT/4.0x/XP

For Macintosh
PowerPC 300 MHz processor higher
System 8.0 or above

Hardware Requirements

32 MB disk space/64 MB RAM
12x CD-ROM drive and sound card support
QuickTime 5.0 (included)
Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 (included)

About the Author

Dan Livingston has handled Web design projects for a wide cross section of leading technology and business clients, including Apple, Novell, Pacific Bell, GoLive, Tut Systems, Quantum, and Lilly. His sites have garnered awards from Yahoo! and USA Today, been featured on CNN, been praised by the Los Angeles Times and lauded by human interface guru Donald Norman. Founder of Wire Man Productions, he is co-author of Essential CSS and DHTML for Web Professionals, Essential Photoshop for Web Professionals, and Essential JavaScript for Web Professionals.

Product Details

• CD-ROM: 216 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Education; CD-Rom edition (December 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130670286
• ISBN-13: 978-0130670281
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.4 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,577,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best way BY FAR to learn ActionScript, January 9, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Dan Livingston's Advanced Macromedia Flash Training Course, ActionScript in Action (CD-ROM)

I usually hate video training courses - the narrator is often incredibly boring, and just recites powerpoint slides with a little embellishement. Yaaaawwwwnnn.

However, this training course is great. Dan Livingston is lively, clearly smart and definitely funny. It's actually fun watching him add ActionScript to Flash movies - he actually does all the coding as the camera rolls, so you know what he does actually works. The examples are fun, but show you real stuff, the workbook is great, and the printed book (also ActionScript in Action) is in electronic form, and I've used it a few times for reference. He covers all sorts if interactivity, including forms, simple games, Smart Clips, XML, and some super-weird, super-cool effects.

Even if you usually stick with books, this is one training product that won't make you feel like an idiot watching it. Dan is clearly having fun (the comment about make-up almost made me fall out of my chair), and his enthusiasm is contagious.

I've read most of the ActionScript books out there, and I strongly recommend this - it's like watching a nature show on Discovery, but about ActionScript (and no crocodiles).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Value for the price, March 4, 2002

By 

.Jay Sidman "Webseers" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dan Livingston's Advanced Macromedia Flash Training Course, ActionScript in Action (CD-ROM)

I'm going thru the Flash Training course write now and I find that Dan Livinston Teaches in a compelling, and engaging style with just the right touch of humor to keep us alert on the subjects. There are 2 cd's and Dan cover's a lot of material that can really advance your Flash career. It helps me a lot to watch several videos by an expert instructor who knows and is comfortable with his material like Dan, instead of reading a book that we might not have as much retention after going over the pages. That is why people pay so much to go to seminars and hear and see people teach the latest and greatest software. Dan Livingston's course does it here for you in a tiny fraction of the cost which to me is a tremendous value. I also had to comment on one of the other reviews that was negative on this course. It seems its real purpose was to promote Lynda's courses which are not bad but more then twice as expensive and don't cover as much material. To Dan thanks for giving us actionscript wannabe's a fighting chance to excell in the program.

3.0 out of 5 stars Probably something else out there that is better, September 17, 2004

By 

still6345 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dan Livingston's Advanced Macromedia Flash Training Course, ActionScript in Action (CD-ROM)

I received this program as a gift when I first began learning Flash. I tried it out for awhile, but found it difficult without knowing the flash environment very well. About a year later I tried it again, and got a solid beginning to Actionscript. I find it very helpful to have someone speaking and showing you what to do over simply reading direct from a book. There are several lessons and excercises from learning about variables to creating a space game to beginning XML.

However, when I received it more than a year ago, it was dated. It is based on Flash 5 I believe, and the quicktime video isn't always sharp. Livingston is pleasant to listen to and reasonably easy to understand, but I don't feel after completing the program that I learned enough to make this actionscript applicable. I would look for a more current training course, this one will teach you some of the basics, but will not give you much more experience than many online tutorials.