Customer Reviews

Macromedia Flash Professional 8: Training from the Source

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

It's because of too many books like this one that it's been taking me years to learn this already complex program. Apparently I'm not the only person who feels this way.

I was going to wait until at least halfway through the book, to be fair, before panning it, but the effort of trying to learn Flash combined with the effort of trying to determine what these authors meant to write has gotten me quite angry at this point. I'm no Flash expert (again, thanks to Macromedia Press), but I've retained enough to know that you don't use the F5 key to create a keyframe, as the author claims on page 109. And this is a mere paragraph after you were told to use that very key to create a blank frame.

The bad news began in Chapter One, page 17, step 1, where it tells you to open a file that you already created. Never happened. You are instructed to add files to the library; unfortunately all the files (which were provided on the accompanying CD) are grayed out and you can't do diddly with them. You are asked several times to reference files located in the chapter folder you are working on; these files are in fact located in a totally separate folder called "Media". Page 105; you are shown a screen shot of the grid editing window ..... author describes how to open the guide editor, but oops, there's another (the same) screen shot of the grid editor! Oh my, how did THAT get there?

These guys are gonna teach me Actionscript?? I don't think so.

It's pretty sad when you're trying to learn from a book, and by the fourth chapter you can't believe half of what you're reading. I had a Training from the Source book on Studio 8 pre-ordered, but now I have canceled it, and will surely never buy another title in this series in the future.

A lesson hard-learned.

This book is full of errors, errors that an editing team should have caught. Errors include directing you to use files that its claims you have created but have not and refering to file paths that are completely wrong. I am only through half of the book and luckily the first half has been mostly review of things I learned with previous versions of Flash, if I was a total beginner I think the errors in the book would have really impeaped my progress. That said I am scared of doing the next half of the book because it is stuff that I am not too familiar with and the errors will probaly screw me. Macromedia needs to reedit this and offer all of us who already brought the book a exchange program. Where as before I really trusted books from the Training From the Source series, I feel a little wary about buying more, and I really want to get the Actionscript 2.0 book.

Never have I used, or tried to use, a book that has so many errors in it. Did they cut and paste an older version of the book, or Frankenstein a few books together to make this thing?

There are three pages of errata at the publishers web site. The entire book has one screw-up through out! Spelling errors, missing words, odd jumps of skill. Even with the errata, I am still finding errors!

I hope the guys didn't get paid much to 'write' this thing. It makes me wonder if this book was translated from some other language into English...

For those stuck with this book, here is the URL for the errata: http://www.peachpit.com/content/images/0321384032/errata/errata.pdf

And you have to rate this book to post a comment. Hence one star...

I am a flash beginner and right now I am in the middle of chapter 2 of the book. I must say that I am already quite frustrated with the lack of details and errors. I have been following step by step with the examples but when i get to the end, things aren't the same as the final example. Thinking that I was messing up, I would go through the steps again just to see if I missed something. Well, after reading the other reviews, it is obvious that there are some serious problems with this book. Not so sure i want to use this to learn how to create flash movies incorrectly! Don't waste your money!

Amazingly enough, I have learned some things from this book. But that's because I'm already familiar with Flash Actionscript. Here's the problem with this book. It's as if the authors wrote a decent book, then they dropped all of the pages off a balcony. The pages weren't numbered, so they just put them back any old way.

For example, they give you some exercises that involve Actionscripting. The scripts are somewhat sophisticated, involving x and y coordinates, variables, etc. After they show you the code they say, "this one is pretty straight forward...", and then provide a very brief explanation. If you're a beginner to Actionscripting, you need more than that. But this is what really gets me. Several chapters later, they tell you that they are going to teach you how to animate with Actionscript. Now they act like you're a total beginner, and explain the basics, things that you already put into use several chapters back. The order is completely out of whack.

Besides that, sometimes they have the wrong diagram in the wrong place or the code is written incorrectly or files are missing on the CD. I was getting so irritated today working with the book that I had to stop and write a review. I'm surprised that Macromedia allowed their name on this book.

Sheeesh. I am fairly adept at manual-ese, but there's no way I was going to be able to parse this book. There are so many errors and poor practices in here that the errata addendum would be about half as long as the book itself.

I bought the book becuase I generally trust the publisher's work, but this is a real pimple on Peachpit's catalog. They're going to have to start over from scratch on this one.

This book requires some previous knowledge of Flash as it says in the introduction of the book. This important piece of information is not on the Amazon page. I am a total beginner and am lost by page 7. I also ran into the error early on about a file I was supposed to have created. I'm a bit wary of the Training from the source series now. I used the "Dummies" series to get up to speed on Dreamweaver and may go to the Dummies for Flash 8.

I can't believe that Macromedia allowed this book to be published under it's LOGO.
You can't get a listing of Eratta from Peachpit or Green himself.

This is the worst training manual I have ever seen. What the hell happened?

Do not buy this book!!! I was naive to believe that because this was coming from Macromedia that it would be worth the $40+ dollars to get "Training From the Source". It wasn't!! It is hands down the worst instructional book that I have ever used and would strongly recommend that you do not waste your money.

I am a fulltime graphic designer who has used Photoshop, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, etc. for years. I am not new to web, but had very little experience with Flash. I was hoping to become more flash savy, but I don't even know if I can make it through this entire book. The author doesn't always remember to tell you what project you are opening up, doesn't call buttons in the toolbar by correct name, fails to tell you to switch from one layer to another...and in general makes the entire experience a confusing guessing game.

I'm amazed that this book was actually edited, published and then that Macromedia put thier stamp of apporval on it...wow what a disaster!!