Macromedia Flash MX 2004: A Beginner's Guide [Paperback]

Brian Underdahl (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0072229829 | ISBN-13: 978-0072229820 | Publication Date: November 20, 2003 | Edition: 1

Animate your productions and publish Flash movies. Take advantage of Flash’s functionality and flexibility, and discover even greater creativity and brighter, more effective Web content. Get fascinating, step-by-step coverage of arguably the most exciting Web authoring tool ever created. Learn the fundamental tools as well as ActionScript, Flash’s native programming language.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brian Underdahl (Reno, NV) is the best-selling author of more than 60 books on all aspects of computing including Macromedia Flash MX: The Complete Reference. During his career he has appeared on a number of TV shows as an invited expert, including the Computer Chronicles and TechTV. Brian’s books have won awards and received critical acclaim from a number of organizations, including an Award of Merit from the Northern California Technical Communications Competition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (November 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072229829
• ISBN-13: 978-0072229820
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,572,548 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I think this book is ideal for a computer-savvy beginner, March 26, 2005

By 

VR "pokerizer" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX 2004: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback)

I found this book to be easy to use and fairly comprehensive for a beginner's book. It is comprised of fourteen separate modules teaching new skillsets in Flash MX 2004. It was well-written and direct in its explanation of location and use of the different parts of the Flash interface, which really cuts down on the frustration level for newbies. Compared to some other books that took things a little too slow, I found this book got me up to speed in one weekend, which is how long it took me to go through it cover to cover and do all the exercises. I was already familiar with Photoshop; the drawing tools in Flash, along with using Layers, is similar. I think this book is ideal for any Web professional to quickly and efficiently get up to an intermediate level of competence in Flash MX in a short period of time.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Only an average book, IF you are absolutely new to Flash, September 23, 2004

By 

Gary King - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX 2004: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback)

This is only an average book, if you are absolutely new to Flash. The reason I say this is because I am fairly okay with Flash, meaning I can make simple animations, modify other's, but am no pro at one. I know that this book is for beginner's, but I think that doing things in a more 'hands-on' fashion would teach you far better than reading how to make animations from a book. It would be better if you purchased Flash reference books instead, so if you ever needed help, THEN you go to find the answer. Also, you could just visit sites such as www.flashkit.com to find your answers or post on their forums.

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent kick-start for any potential flash programmer!, September 28, 2011

By 

Morad (Israel) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX 2004: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback)

I am so grateful to this book, I took it with me when we went on vacation and spent my time reading it and when I came home I started putting everything I learned to practice, 1 month later I had my very first flash movie ready and 2 months later I completed my very first flash game...

It doesn't teach you everything exactly, just the ground basics of drawing and animating and a very brief introduction to code writing, but that was all I needed, I knew a bit of Javascript from before and when I learned the basics of writing stop(), play commands it all clicked instantly and ActionScript became my favorite scripting language...

This book doesn't leave a thing out, it covers all the basic tools and goes over them one by one (that may sound unnecessary but trust me it is, you must have complete solid grounding before you start tinkering with the big stuff) and it explains the basics of motion and shape tweening beautifully, I tried learnning flash from online tutorial videos before but hadn't been able to learn a thing from them, but in this book it's all explained so well it is suited for both beginners and expert programmers alike (if you have skills with any other programming language you won't need any other book to explain ActionScript to you)