Customer Reviews

Macromedia Director MX and Lingo: Training from the Source

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

 

 

Awhile ago I picked up a couple of books on Director 8 to learn the same, but found the books written for someone who has a great deal of devotion and time to learn the program. At the time I had more pressing matters and postponed learning Director. Now, over a year later, I decided to take another run at Director MX. The options for learning material is limited at the time of this writing so the tomb was purchased and after loading the 30-day Director MX trial program from the enclosed CD-ROM, I turned to page one.

Over the past two years I've taught myself numerous software programs (i.e. After Effects, Premiere, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Commotion, Edition) and have found that `tutorial' books fall into three categories. The three categories are: One, the author doesn't know the subject well enough to teach it. Two, the author knows the material, but only a digit head can absorb the material the way it is presented. Three, the author understands the material and knows how to `chunk' it into bite size morsels that are easy to comprehend and recall for the average user.

Phil Gross is definitely someone who understands the material and more importantly is able to structure the presentation so that one lesson builds on another, which leads to a level of proficiency that the learner has the skill and self confidence to develop projects on their own.

There is a lot of information on Director here, but rather less on Lingo than the title suggests. The CD accompanying the book has several 'bonus' chapters, a feature which I thoroughly dislike. Files for the various projects are also on the CD - a feature I do like rather than looking up a website.

The book is packed with Director tips and techniques and is as good as is available for Director. However, despite all this information, no coherent design philosophy is put forward in the book to help developers. This is a definite shortcoming. Set against that, the projects are interesting in the main, so you can extrapolate. The section on video control in Lingo is very interesting but too short to get into more meaty topics. Bizarrely the chapter on Director and the web is on the CD. The chapter on databases and lists is useful, but limited, and will appeal to programmers in particular. There is a chapter on animation using an 'arm' which is too long winded and really could do with a technical tweaking. The embeddability of 3D models is covered in a hit and miss fashion. For instance the chapter on Director 3D is on the CD.

I am reasonably positive about this book but I got the feeling that the author was upgrading an earlier version. From an educational perspective, the organisation of chapters and their goals is not ideal. However, there are really very few good texts on Macromedia products around. This is a very reasonable and sustained effort. At some stage it would be very useful if Macromedia actually listened to what their customers are looking for in instruction manuals. Until then, this type of book will dominate the market. Competent but not great.

Okay i cant lie, this book helped me out during my noob years while learning Director. Its not for the hardcore users that already have a great and powerful background. If your new to director mx then this is for you no questions ask. It teachs all the basic stuff that you will need to understand how director works.

I found this book to be exactly what I needed to get started with Director. I had very little background with flash/shockwave, etc, and this book helped me get the start I needed. The lessons were easy to follow with clear and concise directions. I would recommend this book to anyone trying to learn Director!

When I decided to learn about Director I knew it would demand a lot of time and the best references I could get, as we all know Director is not for the faint of heart. Based on that, I got myself two DVD training courses and three books: The Director MX2004 Bible, the Visual Quickstart Guide and this Training from the Source. I can honestly say this one has the best didactic of all. It's the only one I was able to read from cover to cover, and we're talking about a 800+ pages book. The author takes you on a great ride with simple to complex examples and, in the end, you got yourself all you need to start working with Director basically and even intermediately. After that, it's all about in-depth research through more specific task oriented materials, forums, etc. Too bad the book wasn't updated to the MX 2004 version but unless you rather use Javascript than Lingo, you won't miss much.

In a short line, buy this one for sure and consider any other as a complement to your Director learning!

I am totally enamored by the power of Director. It overwhelms my sense of possibilities. I have been so entrenched with HTML that the interactive and branching possibilities in this program almost redefine the concepts entirely. That said, having never done any programming beyond HTML coding, this book is stretching me. I once read that learning wrinkles your brain. Well in Lesson 22 I got way past wrinkled and jumped to knots.

The fact is Chapter 22 tells you one item, a repeat loop for example, then takes it away saying "do it this way instead". I believe the instructions for the MoveArmUp script is redone, in some form or other, at least 3 times. While I understand the final script and script methodology is more efficient, I began to think this chapters true purpose was to see how well you could read and transmit that to the screen via the keyboard.

All in all I think this book leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the beginner. The pace was fast, but doable before Lesson 22. At Lesson 22 it bogs down into a morass.

For all Macromedia's competence with their programs and e-learning software, they need a good specialist in teaching to go over this book, or any book, before they publish it. Boo Hiss!

The book came in good condition and on time. The book covers everything about director.

which book can i refer to learn lingos from the scratch
do i get a book with tutorials samples