Customer Reviews

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

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

 

 

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)

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???

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.

This book is OK, but lacks depth in many topics to the point where you wish the author never brought them up. I know this is suppose to a quickstart guide, but with some of the explainations it leaves much to be desired.

It ios good to get up to speed quickly, but doesn't offer much solid information,.

<rant>
This book is so littered with mistakes that it is a bad choice for anyone who wants to learn advanced Flash development. I found many errors that would totally confuse anyone attempting to follow instructions. It's amazing that any editor let this one get out.

In constructing guide layers, the only thing that a developer would put on that layer is the guide. Yet repeatedly, the book misidentifies regular layers in the text as "guided layers" while the screen shots depict regular layers. The mistakes start on page 7 and keep rolling. If there's a difference between "guide layers" and "guided layers", those terms should be clearly defined. The terminology is too close for the average reader to differentiate.

Even worse, there's no section in the beginning on the use of the CD and where files are located. So the reader locates the file with the appropriate graphics and attempts to follow the steps in the instructions, only to discover that the FLA is in a much more advanced stage of development than the starting point for the exercise. As a result, the learner doesn't get the benefit of doing the exercise because he or she must interpolate what went on before the stage of development for the FLA rather than getting the experience of constructing it.

Wouldn't it be better to simply include the graphic, tell the learner to open a new file, and give complete, clear instructions to work all the way through an exercise? Isn't this book supposed to be about learning?

I could go on about the many things that are wrong with this book, but the best I can say is that it needs a good technical writer or editor to clean up the mess made by the subject-matter expert who wrote it. This is precisely why it's a bad idea to have a SME be a writer.

A good technical writer would have some introductory material on the CD and state in the instructions for each exercise, "Using file xyz.fla ..." so that the reader can easily discern which file to use. This practice also ensures that the file and the instructions are in the same starting place.
</rant>

This Flash MX book is not worth buying or even reading. It's filled with mistakes. Take page 204. Step no 6 provides the code to write in an HTML page. The problem is the code is wrong. What's even more funny, just next to it, in figure 6.23, there's a visual example of the code, which doesn't even match with the one in Step no 6. The worst part of all this is that not only is the code on that page wrong but also on the previous page(203). The code there also has mistakes. But if you go to Macromedia's web site, look up "popup window" and you'll find a page which tells you how to create a pop-up windows with all the correct code, and it's free.

I don't understand how Macromedia can print books like this. Yes, it's a Peachpit Press book but it's printed in association with Macromedia Press. If there's one thing that a Flash book shouldn't be is be filled with mistakes when it comes to the coding. How can anyone learn anything if the code they provide doesn't even work? It's shameful.

Read their reviews. I skipped ahead and wanted to learn "Chapter 6: Managing Outside Communication", and I found details left out in the two examples that I looked at but now I'm skeptical about the rest of the book. I bought this book hoping to learn some advanced features but in the end, I'm returning it. Not surprisingly, I see a lot of other people selling their edition which tells you that something's wrong.

One of the best books around. You'll get more than your money's worth!

I have been a flash designer for over 4 years.

But this book hits the spot for anyone who wants to advance their intermediate flash skills, to professional flash skills.

For example, if you are sick of all the advanced internet tutorials written for Flash 5, get this book. This book covers flash MX's new actionscripting syntax fully. That way you do not get confused looking at old source files. These source files are NEW.

I may already know Flash, I may not know how to spell, but I highly recommend this book.