Flash 5 Magic (Paperback)

by Scott Hamlin (Author), David J. Emberton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
This is the follow-up to last year's extremely popular and well-regarded Flash 4 Magic. Once again, the authors have assembled smart and visually attractive projects that reflect real-world applications faced by professional Web developers today. As in the previous volume, the text walks readers step-by-step through the project files (provided on the CD). The text is to the left, and ample screen shots and boxes of code are to the right in a wide-format book that lies open easily in front of the computer.

This is a completely new book, though, with new projects and a closer focus on ActionScript. It's not a Flash primer. Readers should already be familiar with the authoring environment and the basics of how to make .swf files. What the book does concentrate on is basic to advanced object-oriented scripting, Flash application development, client/server interaction, rich media content development, and animations that utilize all these issues and more.

The book can be read in both a linear and nonlinear fashion. The authors selected techniques that are widely used on the Web today and grouped them under categories where they're most likely to be needed. For example, for sites geared towards online entertainment and streaming video, there's a project using a QuickTime/Flash integration. Other categories (and projects) include education, games, and simulations (a "Bubble Fighter" spaceship game that employs programming with trigonometry); product promotion and brand marketing (an "animated brochure" interface for a cleaning spray that incorporates a form integrated with a database and a game); and a freelance Web developer's portfolio (showing off a soundplayer interface, mouse trailer effects, and a background randomizer). Each chapter and project is subdivided into fairly self-contained miniprojects that can be read and used separately--for example, a board game that demonstrates Flash 5's new function capability. Each minitask ends with a "How It Works" section, which serves as a good introduction as well as a summary.

With Flash 5, ActionScript is different and more powerful than before, and Flash 4 users, as well as all readers, are advised to first read the ActionScript introduction that comes bundled with the app. Flash 5 Magic's excellent writing, as well as its layout, is clean and uncluttered, and, most importantly, makes the "magic" behind ActionScripting seem doable. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered:

• QuickTime/Flash integration
• Printing with Flash
• Working with Smart Clips
• Working with arrays
• Handling keyboard input
• Using modular programming to create a game
• Programming with trigonometry
• Programming collision detection with multiple projectiles
• Using Color object, attachMovie action, symbol linkage and Mouse object to create a coloring book style game
• Creating scripted animations (e.g., zoom in & out, rotate)
• Using shared libraries to manage assets
• Working with forms and ASP
• Working with functions
• Utilizing XML data
• Displaying rich text
• Generating dynamic menus
• Setting up audio controls
• Creating mouse-driven effects
• Manipulating movie clip attributes
• External database integration

Review
"By far the best source for advanced ActionScript. Flash 5 Magic is a must for any professional web developer." -- Jason Buscema, Director of Web Development, Lambesis, Inc., , December 5, 2000

"Flash 5 Magic delivers essential real world techniques for developing content. T his book has a special place on my bookshelf..." -- Eric J. Wittman, Director of Product Management, Flash Products, Macromedia, December 1, 2000

"Flash 5 Magic goes behind the facade... That doesn't mean easy, mind you, but then, magic never is." -- Daniel Will-Harris, November 25, 2000

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press (January 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735710236
• ISBN-13: 978-0735710238
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,248,987 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Stars!! It's that good!, February 3, 2001

By	Joyce Evans (Florida) - See all my reviews

I thought Flash 4 Magic was great, but this version, which is a Totally different book, is in a category of it's own. But be warned, when the category listing says intermediate to Advanced, it means it. Of course that's what useres at that level want. If you want a beginners book, check out Friends of Ed foundational book or the Idiots book (I hate that title) but Mr. Karlins did a great job for the beginner.

You want the meat and potatoes of Flash, this is a great book. It uses Real World projects such as managing your assests, designing a shared library, and tons of ActionScript. Is this the "pretty" stuff, no, but it sure helps you get the job done.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of the pretty stuff too, but with the pretty comes setting up rotation and alpha transparency, animating mouse effects, randomized arrays. There is just so much in this book, I couldn't begin to tell it all. You will even implement databases and add content to an XML document. This is a very deep book and the tough subjects are not avoided.

You will not regret investing in your future by purchasing this book.Even if you are new with ActionScript you will be able to figure it out with this book. Not to say a total novice opening Flash for the first time would be comfortable.

37 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is NOT it!, February 17, 2001

By	Doug Hays (Carson City, NV United States) - See all my reviews

*

If you are trying to learn to integrate Flash with middleware scripting, i.e. asp, cfm, jsp, or php, this book will drive you nuts. The examples DO NOT work and the authors DO NOT have a support site with corrected code.

The book sends you to URLs that don't exist, and requesting technical support from the included phone number sends you to an answering machine.

After discovering that no one was interested in supporting the information contained in this book, I emailed a couple of the other folks who left "5 Star" reviews and asked them, "were you able to get the example in chapter 13 to work?" (the first real example of asp integration). I received a reply... "There is no way that I could possibly check all the code for review".

To me, that's bad.

Don't believe the 5 Star reviews. I've actually READ the book, DONE the examples, and SPENT the time to discover the authors pushed this book out the door without debugging it.

It's up to you. You can take a chance and spend the time and money to discover for yourself, or you can pass this book by. If ANYONE can get this code to work as stated in the book, email me at [e-mail] and I'll eat my Windows 2000 server!

*

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fancy Picture Book with Frustrated Results., September 24, 2001

By A Customer

This is strictly my opinion, thus it is not empirically verifiable, but I found this book to be extremely disappointing! To me, it seemed as if the authors of this book wrote it the night before it was due to the editors. Until I had read a few other books on Flash 5, I thought it was me. The book takes you through a tutorial on updating a flash movie, say "megansdiary_start.swf," and your updated flash movie should come out exactly like the author's included final flash movie for that tutorial, "megansdiary_final.swf." However, there are lines of syntax that the tutorials fail to mention need to be added to the *_start.swf in order for it to come out like the *_final.swf. Also, what the authors tell you to input into ActionScript for your *_start.swf differs from what they have input in their *_final.swf, not only in location, but in content as well. They might make the claim that I read the book wrong, but that's only because the authors are catering to themselves as readers, not as an intermediate, or let alone a beginner in Flash 5. If I were one of those authors, I would ask for all copies to be recalled to update it in an edited version or I would ask for all copies to just be recalled giving a refund, to avoid future embarassment. I can't believe I wasted [my money] on this book. Oh well, it has neat pictures!