Customer Reviews

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Absolute beginners to the world of Flash MX 2004 have many choices, but the selection thins out once you advance beyond the basics. Doorstop-sized reference books for ActionScript are often of limited help, because they tell you what a particular line of code will do, but they don't reveal the situations in which the code is useful. Authors Chun and Garraffo have extracted the elements of ActionScript that are most important to the intermediate Flash developer, and explained them in the context of specific objectives.

This book covers the essentials of interactivity, nested timelines, and advanced animation that are probably on your to-do list if you are a advanced beginner-intermediate Flash developer. Many of these principles are less than intuitive at first, and the authors have done a superb job of breaking down each task into a series of repeatable steps.

The examples given in the book are detailed enough to illustrate each point, but short enough to digest within a few minutes. (I am often exasperated by computer books that require the reader to wade through a lengthy tutorial in order to locate a single technique.)

At more than 600 pages, this book will also satisfy those readers who believe that a computer book MUST be a doorstop in order to be worth buying. There is a lot of content here, and the instruction assembled by Chun and Garraffo is well worth the price of the book.

We used this book as a textbook for a second flash course in our multimedia program and overall I would have to say that this book is an excellent introduction to some more advanced techniques in flash mx 2004. I especially like the short tutorial approach that these books use - quick and handy. My only beef is that there isn't anything solid on components or xml, so that is why I say it is an introduction to more advanced topics. Topics like creating your own pull-down menus using tweening and actionscript (not components), attaching sounds, and stuff that requires using export for actionscript. If you are not sure what I am talking about then this is probably the book for you! Otherwise maybe consider something like "Flash MX 2004 actionscript" by Macromedia press.

Out of 4 books that I purchased to learn Flash, this is certainly the one with the most attractive format -- the formatting of screen shots and text in the "Visual QuickPro" range is superb. I wish all books were as readable as this one. These books read well chapter-by-chapter, but are also very useful as a reference. The balance and quality of Windows and Mac screen shots is also very good.

My minor criticisms are:
- Obviously, the book isn't as comprehensive as the Flash MX ActionScript Bible by Robert Reinhardt. So as a reference, I like having this other book handy as well;
- The book doesn't always mention whether features are only available in Flash Player 7. For example, there is no mention that the ContextMenu class which is nicely described in chapter 4 requires Flash Player 7 to work.

Overall, this book offers excellent value for money.

I develop web applications (PHP, MySQL and some Javascript) for
our company and I was looking for an Actionscript 2.0 book after
reading "Show Me! Macromedia Flash MX 2004"from Que. I bought
this book because of the great reviews here. Am I disappointed?

Well, the content is good but the instructions are somewhat
repetitive. I was used to other books showing the code first,
then explaining what it does and moving on from there without
repeating previous instructions.

This book handholds its readers like they're babies (I don't
want to use the word "dummies") and this book could have been
halved if it didn't treat its readers as such. I mean how many
times do the authors have to say, "Select the first frame of the
root Timeline, and open the Actions panel" or "Create a new line
after your last line of code from the preceding task". There
are other texts repeated this way. It wastes space that could
have been used for other tips (i.e. real and faked physics for
advanced animation).

If I were a non-programmer, this books scores 5 but since I'm
not I'd have to say its a 4. Personally, it could be 4.5 but I'd
have to take the 0.5 for the repetitive instructions.

If know you know how to program already, I suggest you look for
other Actionscript 2.0 books here that rates 5 (I'm sorry I
can't recommend any as this is my first Actionscript 2 book but
not the last one I hope).

This book has helped tremendously. Before I looked into this book, I was afraid of true actionscripting. This book has helped me to understand what others made confusing and hard. I don't think it is the final say so... as Flash is truly a vast application with many capabilities, but it's a terrific start for those who are familiar to designing in flash, but not superb at scripting. It will "Demistify" the actionscripting fear for sure. Now I can open other more in-depth programming books and actually make sense of code. I recommend this for any web professional that has actually worked with, not just dabbled in Flash.

Chun and Garraffo did an excellent job in creating a book that could be used in and out of a classroom setting. It is also a great reference tool if you need to brush up on something you once learned. Having come from a marketing background, this book is very easy to understand and can truly teach someone how to develop an entire Flash site.

I've just built my first flash website after watching "Learning Macromedia Flash MX 2004" by Lynda.com and wanted to learn more about Flash. Saw this book on Amazon and bought it. It's probably the best educational book I've ever read: straight to the point, almost every tip was a tip that you knew mattered. The lessons are numbered step by step and don't drag you off into "help me I'm bored land." An excersise files CD is definitely a plus. That's pretty much it. I won't say I'm an advanced "Flash Guy" after reading this book, but I'm much more comfortable with what I'm doing now. I've gotten two more sites built, a bunch of friends who want me to build them a site, and a wedding site(for a friend) to build - hmmmm maybe this hobby could end up being something more?

As a Flash user with a background in print design I have been looking for a book to unlock some of the mysteries of ActionScripting! After a long perusal of the book section I chose this book. I am pleased to report that my choice was wise. This book is well written and explains the reasons behind the scripting. It also contains the source code for all the tutorials which is a help.

And now the great part...
I was working on the "Detecting Download Progress of External Images and Movies" tutorial and encountered a problem with the finished preloader which would not work. I checked the Peachpit Press website for errata on this book but found nothing. As a last resort I emailed Russell Chun and he responded!
He gave me the answer to my problem which was to do with the FlashPlayer not supporting Local Loading of SWF files using the MovieClipLoader command.
My thanks to Russell Chun!!! If you are new to Flash or want to increase your actionscripting knowledge buy this book!!!

This book is well done and is good at simplifying the complexities of more advanced Flash concepts. However, I have found some typos in the book - one in particular that really threw me off while learning about absolute and relative paths (they had two diagram examples switched around so that they were saying one thing and showing another - my instructor even verified this). I have not read through the whole book and am hoping that there won't be any more problems like that.

It is also hard to find the exercises on the CD that match with the book because they are not organized on the CD in a manner that corresponds with the book. You have to sort of go digging for the exercises on the CD and open the files based on what you're looking at in the book. Not the best way to put so much info on a CD that goes with a book, if you ask me.

This is a good book to learn more advanced Flash concepts but it is probably not the best out there, in my opinion. I really like the books sold on lynda.com and I would recommend those if you are looking for self-paced learning tools.

If you have some programming knowledge already, this book is a good way to learn how to apply your knowledge in the Flash environment. It has a good index and hundreds of pages of useful features explained so you may get on with whatever you are trying to create. I have found it so useful for user interface prototyping that I take it back and forth to/from the office whenever I am building prototypes.