Macromedia Flash MX Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide [Paperback]

Russell Chun (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201758466 | ISBN-13: 978-0201758467 | Publication Date: May 18, 2002

Ready to take your Flash knowledge to the next level? Then Macromedia Flash MX Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide is your ticket. Designed for professionals like yourself-users who have mastered the basics of Flash but need help with the advanced animation techniques and ActionScripting--this guide is a must-have for graphic designers, Web animators, game programmers, interface designers, and multimedia pros.

In this volume, veteran Flash instructor Russell Chun eschews "cool effects" and case studies for an approach that emphasizes methodology and problem-solving. Using the task-based format that readers have come to expect from this popular series, Russell has divided the text into three primary sections: animation, navigation, and interactivity. The guide covers all of Flash's new features, including the revamped user interface, brand-new commands, and added drawing and text tools. Plus, you'll find plenty of screen shots and visual aids to reinforce the text. With Flash MX Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide by your side, you'll soon find yourself thinking--maybe even dreaming--in Flash.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Ready to take your Flash knowledge to the next level? Then Macromedia Flash MX Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide is your ticket. Designed for professionals like yourself-users who have mastered the basics of Flash but need help with the advanced animation techniques and ActionScripting--this guide is a must-have for graphic designers, Web animators, game programmers, interface designers, and multimedia pros.

In this volume, veteran Flash instructor Russell Chun eschews "cool effects" and case studies for an approach that emphasizes methodology and problem-solving. Using the task-based format that readers have come to expect from this popular series, Russell has divided the text into three primary sections: animation, navigation, and interactivity. The guide covers all of Flash's new features, including the revamped user interface, brand-new commands, and added drawing and text tools. Plus, you'll find plenty of screen shots and visual aids to reinforce the text. With Flash MX Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide by your side, you'll soon find yourself thinking--maybe even dreaming--in Flash.

About the Author

@CATEGORY = Electronic and Desktop Publishing@TITLE = Macromedia Flash X Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide@HEADLINE = Take your Flash skills to the next level with a Visual QuickPro Guide!@BULLET = This Visual QuickPro Guide discusses more complex Flash topics, such as advanced animation techniques and ActionScript programming.@BULLET = One of the best-selling Flash titles on the market, completely updated with revised examples and plenty of new screenshots reflecting the updated Flash interface.@BULLET = Geared for the intermediate-to-advanced Flash developer audience.@SUMMARY = Macromedia Flash X Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide is targeted at intermediate-to-advanced Flash developers, including graphic designers, Web animators, game programmers, interface designers, and producers. These are the people who are already familiar with the basics of Flash and need a book to help them learn advanced animation techniques and ActionScripting. Russell Chun, an experienced Flash instructor, sidesteps "cool effects" and specific case studies in favor of demonstrating basic ways to approach animation and interactivity in Flash. By presenting material in a logical fashion that emphasizes method and problem-solving approaches, this book encourages readers to "think" in Flash and truly understand its flexibility and functionality. The text is divided into three sections: advanced animations, advanced navigation, and advanced interactivity. All of Flash X's new features are covered, including the revamped user interface, brand-new ActionScript commands, and Flash's new drawing and text tools.@AUTHBIO = Russell Chun earned his B.S. In Biology at the University of Michigan and later earned an M.A. In Medical Illustration from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Since then, he's been involved with developing interactive educational media for the sciences, most recently as the Senior Producer for Art and Media at Benjamin Cummings Publishers. He also teaches advanced Flash classes at the Center for Electronic Art in San Francisco and has written several Flash articles for Macworld and SBS Digital magazines. He has conducted both national and regional workshops on Flash, and is the author of all previous editions of this book. @ISBN = 0-201-75846-6 @MAINCAT = Electronic and Desktop Publishing@SUBCAT = Web Graphics and Publishing/Tools@DATALINE1 = 2002, 480 pages, 7 x 9@DATALINE2 = paper w/CD-ROM, $29.99@IMPRINT = Peachpit Press 

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Peachpit Press (May 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201758466
• ISBN-13: 978-0201758467
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,572,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive tutorial for intermediate to advance flash AS, July 28, 2002

By 

Jesse Ventura (Houston, TX, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide (Paperback)

Let me start off saying that I was just into graphics and animation, but not heavily into the programming part of Flash. I was uneasy about the "advanced" title of this book, but after getting into it, the author doesnt just assume you know all and steps right into the hard stuff, he walks you through step by step with illustration and examples. It even uncludes tips and common mistakes to look out for as side notes. It really covers a lot of topics for the intermediate flash users and some for the advance Flash users. If you have been using older versions of Flash and would like to get updated, this book is definately the way to go. If you are one looking to learn action scripting, this is a good book as well. (The second half of the book really goes into advance action scripting)

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars OK...Cool - but???, August 27, 2003

By 

jd (Harrisburg, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide (Paperback)

I am about done with all of the examples in this book...and...Yeah it's definitely a mixed bag on this one! Overall, this is a good book for coders wanting to move from basic AS (gotoAndPlay(etc..);) - to "real" coding (streaming MP3's with volume and balance controls). But...man is this book inconsistent! For one example the author will have you place the code for a function for a button on the first frame of the main timeline - where it should be "per Mr. Moock" - then in the next example he'll tell you to place a function directly on a button itself. Huh? And speaking of the MP3 player - why do you need to write a fully "OOP-compliant" volume control when nothing else in the book even metions OOP? I replaced 5 lines of code for that little sucker with 1 line of code.

That said, however, I haven't had any problems with the example code in the book (other than my own typos and brain cramps - but that's my own problem). As for the CD I ignored it as usual. I always make my own graphics and type every example in a book myself, even if only to learn my own "favorite mistakes."

I would highly recommend this book if you use it along with Colin Moock's AS book. This book has what his lacks - lots of simple straightforward coding examples. I only got through half of Moock's book before I started "Flash Advanced" (all theory and no application is, well, pretty pointless) - but the half I read of Moock's book has allowed me to make sense of the scattershot approach of this book (and to recode all the examples so that they can be placed on the main timeline where they belong). I have since bought, and begun, the Actionscript Cookbook, and that book would seem a logical next step - the final section of it builds full applications.

Bottom line: Hey - no book is perfect. This is an OK book for intermediate coders that is dying to be a great book. Is there an editor in the house???

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Needs fixing up...., April 19, 2003

By 

Miriam - See all my reviews

This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide (Paperback)

This book is good as a general reference but has so many mistakes in it that the code generally can't be trusted to do the job...you'll have to tweak it to get it to work. This was pretty annoying as was the author's complete lack of any information as how to contact him about all the mistakes (and no web page on Peachpit correcting them either). He also tended to give very convoluted solutions to very simple tasks such as closing windows from within Flash with javascript. All examples in the book could not have been tested before it was published, it was definitely bad and surprising editing from Peachpit whose books are generally great. All that said, it is probably still worth getting as a reference book. When you have problems with the code, there will often be a simpler or modified solution on Google groups to help you out. Hopefully, Peachpit will edit and test this book more thoroughly before rushing it out for its next release.