Customer Reviews

Show Me Macromedia Flash MX 2004

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

 

 

I'm up to page 218 and have to say it is so easy to follow. A paragraph outling a new concept, followed by step by step instructions with graphic pictures showing you each step in case your lost or confused. I have used other books and their step by step approach misses critical steps because they assume you know, thus leaving you stranded and frustrated. I look forward to the Intermediate / Advanced level; particularly the Data, ActionScript, XML and so on. Keep up the great work

I ordered some of the highest rated Flash MX 2004 books here on Amazon, but I thought I'd run to the local bookstore to pick up something to get me through crunch time while waiting for my Amazon order to arrive. I ended up buying this book from the limited selection available. Overall, it does contain some good information and I am using it as a reference to look up instructions certain tasks. I have only used Flash very infrequently. This is my first big project in the application, so I thought the "Beginning - Intermediate" user level (printed on the back of the book) would be perfect for me. However, I find this book lacks many of the Actionscript explanations and other tricks I will need to learn to complete my project. Either this book is more simplistic than the editors realized, or I'm a really quick study. The format is very nice, but since the illustrations and whitespace take up a large part of every page, the book is light on content for its 500-some pages. If you are truly a beginner, and don't need to become an overnight Flash wizard, this book would be very well suited for you.

I loved this book because you can learn concepts in little chunks. I sat down for a few minutes every day and just did a few pages, every new page introduces a new concept. I got through the whole book and exercises without any confusion, and felt like I learned as much as if I had attended a software training course.

Show Me Macromedia Flash MX 2004 offers students a fast, effective, "user friendly", and visually oriented way to learn Flash MX. A superbly presented and highly recommended instructional guide, Show Me Macromedia Flash MX 2004's step-by-step instructions, enhanced with accompanying visuals, requires less time reading and allows for more time for hands-on learning.

The only strength of this volume is that it's pretty straight forward. However, the explanations are overly simplistic and no real substance. Its examples are too concrete and don't leave room for more generalization (abstraction, if you will). Because of this, the book is rather limited and and too strict. I understand the intent of the authors was to teach newcomers by "forcing" them through examples, however, I found the cooking recipe-style to be much too constrictive and inflexible.

And I think leaves the person with more questions as to how to do things on their own, but it gives no clues as to how to do it. It's not a bad book, but avoid it if you're up to cooking-recipe-style learning.