Customer Reviews

Macromedia Flash 5: Training from the Source

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

 

 

This book is a really great introduction to Macromedia Flash 5. It is so good, that I'm actually using it as a text book for a class on Flash I am teaching.

The amount of information jammed into this tiny book is very impressive. The author simplifies very complex topics and makes it very easy for people with no or little Flash experience to learn a great deal about the program very quickly.

I highly recommend this book. Last semester, I had to require two books to get the same information that this one is providing. It is just excellent, anyone saying otherwise is just crazy.

I found this book very good for starting out. The exorcises are very easy to follow. Being a self paced learner I found it quite good. You learn good basic steps and build on that. It's written very well. I find it very much like the web guide on the Macromedia site.

One of the only things I didn't like about the it was the price. I think it should have been cheaper. I think as a value it's so so, but if you have the money go for it.

I bought this book based on the recommendation of a friend at school. I have never used Flash before, so I figured that this would be a good book to start with. I'm glad I got it. I can't find those incomplete lessons that the other reviews have talked about. Everything worked just fine, and I learned a lot about Flash.

I e-mailed the author to thank her, and she told me that the real thanks for the book belongs to the people she mentioned in her thank-yous. This book appears to be designed to give a little taste of a lot of different aspects of Flash, and it did an excellent job of doing just that. I don't think it's intended for someone who has been using Flash for a while, so if you're already an expert, I'd recommend looking at some of the more advanced books. This one's for us beginners :)

Overall, Training from the Source has been a quite helpful introduction and reference tool for me as I worm my way (self-taught) into the darkest depths of Flash. The flow of the chapters is logical and the examples are both applicable and insightful.

The author makes a concerted effort to keep things simple and engaging, which does not go unappreciated. The depth of explanation is appropriate, but not cumbersome. Everything is well-explained from a variety of angles and perspectives making the book as a whole much less of a "pure geek" intense read, but more aimed at the tech-savvy enthusiast.

I highly recommend this title to anyone with a sincere interest in furthering their own knowledge and understanding of Flash.

I'm new to Flash, and this book did a great job at taking me through all of the pieces of building an entire Flash site. The instructions were very easy to follow, and the author was more than happy to answer additional questions that I had. If you're new to Flash, this is the book to get. It certainly helped me get started!

After trying and returning a couple of other Flash books I bought the Training from the Source book and loved it right from the start. I do have a problem in lesson three and am looking for an eratta on the book if there is one. I found one typo so far that makes lesson 2 look funny. (Pg 58 #7 the Height and Width are reversed.)
In lesson 3 I can't find the Neptune Logo Symbol in the common library.

I am quite familiar with other Macromedia products such as Dreamweaver and Fireworks. Luckily that experience helped me get through some of the lessons in this book. I am teacher who teaches teachers how to design web pages, and because of my experience with total beginners I know this book is ABSOLUTELY NOT for beginners.
There is too much assumption that people will know how to do things or where to find object, palettes or whatever is necessary for the lesson. At the end of the lessons we are told what we have learned but there is no rhyme or reason to it because there is no explanation of WHY we have learned it, and how it will be useful in the future. Finally, at the end of each chapter you save a half done movie that you never get to work on again in the book. Instead in the successive lesson you open up one in which many changes have been made, which you don't understand since you are not the one who made it and with which you are not familiar. So you begin each successive lesson with something kind of familiar, but not really, making it even harder for beginners.
I expected more out of book published by Macromedia for Macromedia.

After following word for word each instruction in the book, as I reached the half-way point I realized that I really hadn't learned enough to make my own Flash movies without constantly going back to the book as a reference. Indeed, I did in fact make the Flash movies provided as learning examples in the lessons.......but at the expense of having to almost constantly stop and figure out what it was I was doing for explanations were brief. I understand that many of the graphics were already created to save me time, but when most of an entire site was completed for me already.......it just seems that I now know bits and pieces of information about Flash but not enough to feel like I've got a handle on the program. The book does, however, cover many advanced topics that I may choose to learn in the future. However, I think this book should have been 150 pages longer to better explain itself and also to help the user develop a better feel for the program before moving on to more advanced lessons.

This book has many typos and incorrect descriptions. It's disheartening to see such a half...attempt at writing. Especially, one that has the Macromedia logo on it. They have the right idea, but they need a MORE QUALIFIED AUTHOR.

the lessons given were scattered and they were not completed.