Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Unleashed [Paperback]

David Vogeleer (Author), Matthew Pizzi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 2004

Macromedia Flash is the key to designing and delivering low-bandwidth animations, presentations, and Web sites. It is also a full-fledged programming API with scripting capabilities and server-side connectivity enabling the creation of engaging applications, sophisticated Web interfaces, and interactive training courses. Flash has the ability to easily integrate with, and add interactivity to, complex media types with powerful and intuitive tools. Developers can rapidly develop high performance, accessible content using pre-assembled building blocks; and they can expand their authoring capabilities with custom extensions from independent developers.

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Unleashed covers these high-end topics, providing a solid and complete reference for developers. The fundamentals are covered quickly in the first part of the book, while the majority of the content is devoted to the intermediate to advanced developers who need to learn about ActionScript and how Flash works with middleware, such as ColdFusion, ASP, and XML.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Vogeleer is a Macromedia-certified Flash developer and instructor out of Richmond, Virginia. He has been working in Flash since version 4, focusing mainly on ActionScript. Currently freelancing, he also continues to speak at user groups and classes up and down the East Coast. He is also an avid poster on http://www.FlashMagazine.com as well as being coadministrator of http://www.EMLlabs.com, a Flash and dynamic content resource. And after all that, he still manages to occasionally add content to his personal site for experiments, http://www.evolutionar-e.com, and to go snowboarding.

Matthew Pizzi is the Training Director at Train Simple, a software training company specializing in multimedia products, located in Santa Monica, California. Matthew has been teaching fulltime for five years and is the author of multiple training CDs, including his "Up to Speed" series, offering computer-based training in Flash, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro and Photoshop. For more information on classes or training CDs, visit http://www.trainsimple.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 912 pages
• Publisher: Sams (January 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067232606X
• ISBN-13: 978-0672326066
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,471,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It does not cover Flash MX 2004 Professional very well, January 28, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Unleashed (Paperback)

The book title tells peopple it is for Flash MX 2004 professional. However, it is not. It is just another regular Flash Mx 2004 books.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Better than Flash help files, but not by much, August 19, 2005

By 

Ryan M. Langton "software developer" (Manhattan, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Unleashed (Paperback)

The tutorials in this book were obviously not proofread as they are loaded with errors. If you know enough about flash to correct the errors than you can learn some things from this book, but I would highly recommend beginners to look elsewhere. The publishers site is also very poor. The book constantly refers the reader to go to the website for more tutorials, which is a complete runaround because they either don't exist, or you have to uncover them from buried articles linking to other websites! This book could have been great with better proofreading, and a CD including WORKING tutorials.

The only reason I give it 2 stars instead of 1 is because it is a good overview of Flash capabilities. Just don't expect to learn the nuts and bolts of all these features from this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This is a frustrating book, August 10, 2005

By 

John J. Rose - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 Unleashed (Paperback)

For those looking to take their Flash skills from beginner to intermediate status this book covers a lot of topics to help get you there such as OOP with AS 2.0, components, extending Flash, XML, and using Flash with server-side technologies. However, it is full of errors including typos and erroneous code. The latter problem is compounded by a corresponding lack of web suppport as other reviewers have pointed out. If this book had been edited and proofread more vigorously it could have been a great product for helping beginning Flashers take their skills to the next level.