Macromedia Flash MX Studio (With CD-ROM) [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Jamie MacDonald (Author), Keith Peters (Author), Todd Yard (Author), Jez Turner (Author), Alex White (Author), Jon Steer (Author), Steve Webster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2002

How does your work stand up in the freshly competitive environment of the Flash MX marketplace? How can you streamline your ideas to give them greater usability? Where can you take your ideas next?

Macromedia Flash MX Studio takes your raw Flash talent and multiplies its potency by focusing it on real-world web design situations. In the heady days of the late 1990s, designers were trying their hand at anything and everything they could lay their hands on. Now the marketplace is seriously focused, and serious Flash designers have to know exactly what they’re doing and why. These days it’s all about functionality over experimentation, justification over style. It’s all about Maturity. The design must fit the job spec, and this book shows the reader how to fulfil these requirements and more.

This book examines all the avenues open to professional or aspiring professional Flash MX designers. It takes a look at advanced uses of the new MX features, such as components and the Drawing API, and gives guidance on building whole new structures for animation, Dynamic Content, PHP, ColdFusion MX, XML, video, audio and audiovisual formats.

Never before has so much power been so accessible to the web designer. This book is designed to put that power in your hands.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Macromedia Flash MX Studio has been broken into four sections to address the most common needs for the Flash designer. First off, Jamie McDonald provides five chapters on site presentation and the principles of web design. These opening chapters take a look at how to create slick, professional-level sites, involving Flash MX’s new drawing and motion capabilities and interactive techniques.

The second section concentrates on ActionScript. Flash’s resident coding environment is crucial to master, and taps into Flash’s great strength – intuitive and interactive applications. Keith Peters and Todd Yard have buddied up on this section, and examine some of the most advanced ActionScript techniques around. Be warned – this section is not for the faint-hearted!

Section three takes a look at Flash MX’s greatly improved visual, audio and audiovisual capabilities. Its three chapters, written by Jez Turner and Alex White, concentrate on building a single site aimed at displaying rich media content.

The final section is devoted to expounding a few myths about dynamic content using Flash. Its four chapters talk about general practice, before focusing in on specific areas, including introductions to PHP and XML, together with a look at Macromedia’s brand new ColdFusion MX.

About the Author

Connor McDonald has worked with Oracle since the early 1990s, cutting his teeth on Oracle versions 6.0.36 and 7.0.12. Over the past 11 years, Connor has worked with systems in Australia, the U.K., southeast Asia, western Europe, and the United States. He has come to realize that although the systems and methodologies around the world are very diverse, there tend to be two common themes in the development of systems running on Oracle: either to steer away from the Oracle-specific functions or to use them in a haphazard or less-than-optimal fashion. It was this observation that led to the creation of a personal hints and tips website (http://www.OracleDBA.co.uk) and more, presenting on the Oracle speaker circuit in an endeavor to improve the perception and usage of PL/SQL in the industry.

A bio is not available for this author.

After studying theatre in London, then working for several years as an actor in the U.S., Todd Yard was introduced to Flash in 2000 and was quickly taken by how it allowed for both stunning creativity and programmatic logic application—a truly left-brain, right brain approach to production—and has not looked back. He now freelances as a Flash developer in New York City, creating both silly animations and utilitarian applications. His personal work and experimentation can be found at his website, 27Bobs.com. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 500 pages
• Publisher: Friends of ed; Bk&CD-Rom edition (July 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1903450268
• ISBN-13: 978-1903450260
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,650,579 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quality of ED and stunning methods of MX !, August 19, 2002

By 

Nicolas Lierman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX Studio (With CD-ROM) (Paperback)

I own previously owned 7 friends of ed books, and i'm used to their style of writing so i had high expectations.

This new release gets you right into to bussiness this time, no usability lecture or do's and dont's. It handles all the new features in MX illustrated with in depth excercises or complicated case studies.

If you are a solid flash 5 user, it gets you up to date !
(But DON'T BUY this book if you want to GET STARTED WITH MX)

This is the first release so there are still mistakes in some scripts, but that's a plus, IT MAKES YOU THINK why it doesn't work !

It's the best advanced MX book to upgrade to MX !

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars ED's people slipped on this one, June 23, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX Studio (With CD-ROM) (Paperback)

I have used the Friends of Ed books in the past and found them to be excellent tutorials. The Foundation Flash book and the Flash MX ActionScript aare well-rounded, and cover the ground they set out to do, albeit wwith errors here and there.

I bought the Friends of Ed Macromedia Flash MX Studio, expecting similar coverage reflecting advanced concepts for design. Much to my regret, I found this to be a book on ActionScript. The examples are essentially trivial tricks done with ActionScript, with descriptions that suit some aspects of game design.

To contrast, the Flash MX ActionScript book published by FOE focuses on many of the concepts used to build Flash applications... and is a book that would be useful to designers who wish to use Actionscript when developing a Flash Project.

Macromedia Flash MX Studio was a waste of time and money.