Flash MX Magic (3rd Edition) (Magic (New Riders)) (Paperback)

by Matthew David (Author), Mark Baltzegar (Author), Veronique Brossier (Author), Jim Caldwell (Author), John Dalziel (Author), Aria Danika (Author), Robert M. Hall (Author), Andreas Heim (Author), Jason Krogh (Author), 2Advanced Studios (Author), Jessica Speigel (Author), Glenn Thomas (Author), Helen Triolo (Author), Joe Tripician (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Flash MX offers the interactive Web designer a suite of powerful features, and Flash MX Magic describes how to use them in a solid, tutorial-based approach. Fourteen topnotch designers penned this compilation, covering a variety of intermediate and advanced features.

To make the most of this inspiring book, the reader should have Flash MX installed. The opening chapter covers Components, an important new feature in Flash MX that allows a designer to create modules that can be dropped onto the Flash stage. Components is an important new feature that changes how Flash movies are designed, making it much easier to build, integrate, and reuse parts, and the fact that they are featured in chapter 1 signifies this. Components are used in almost every subsequent chapter, covering such subjects as preloading movies, building interactivity using ActionScript, and adding database interactivity.

All the data and project files needed for each chapter are included on the CD-ROM, along with finished versions of each project. Also included are demo versions of Flash MX, Director, Dreamweaver, and FreeHand. Like other books in New Riders' Magic series, Flash MX Magic is rich with color screen shots, concise language, and clear explanations. These are not books for the casual Web coder, but for the serious Flash designer who intends to make the most of the medium. --Mike Caputo

From Library Journal
Older patrons are attracted to audiovisual material on the web, but this video unfortunately misses the mark. It only covers usage of AOL which the narrator consistently conflates with the Internet. Shots of computer screens are blurry, nearly unreadable, and often cut off at the edges. Explanations are incomplete and, in some cases, incorrect (a modem, for example, is defined as "a piece of software"). Not recommended.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 3 edition (April 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735711607
• ISBN-13: 978-0735711600
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 8.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,185,528 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You're better off muddling through by yourself..., May 28, 2002

By A Customer

There are only two thing that a training manual has to accomplish: 1) Give step by step instructions on how to reach a goal and 2) Make sure those instructions are correct. This book fails miserably on both counts.

I only recommend this book if you're the sort of person who buys cool-looking books and sets them on the shelf, hoping your friends will see them, think you actually read it, and be impressed. However, since I like my books to actually be useful -- and in the very least FULLY FUNCTIONAL -- you can imagine my disappointment with "Flash MX Magic."

Time to give some concrete examples. I thought I'd try working through chapter 3 - Preloading. After typing in several lines of ActionScript, I noticed that some code listed in later steps were supposed to be placed inside the brackets of a previously defined function. You aren't instructed to do this in the text, but by loading up the example file I realized the error. Even still, when it came time to test my code, it didn't work.

Realizing that this could just be my mistake, I decided to move on to Chapter 5 - Immersive Panorama. I thought I'd look at the completed project on the CD first to see what I could expect to accomplish. Supposedly this project will teach you how to create a movie in which parallax is simulated in a landscape scrolling to the right. Several different layers move at different speeds, giving an illusion of depth. So what happens when you view their pre-prepared finished product? The absolute background moves, and everything else stays perfectly still. Who releases a book with malfunctioning examples!?!

I went to the NewRiders website to see if these issues had been addressed. What did I find? A ZIP file to download all the missing files necessary to complete the lesson -- not in Chapter 5 -- but in chapter 14, without which the entire chapter is WORTHLESS.

New Riders brags, "Isn't this just about the first Flash MX book released?" Maybe so, but that's no accomplishment. Since the book doesn't appear to have even been error-checked, I guess attempting to release it first was the only goal in publishing it. Here's a tip: Books aren't software. You can't release a patch. That's why you find at least ONE PERSON and have them actually WORK THROUGH THE BOOK to make sure it functions before publishing it. Try it sometime.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flash Magic?, April 30, 2002

By A Customer

This book is decent...but leaves a lot to be desired. The cd that comes with the book includes source files to work on the different chapter projects...but it does not contain final versions of them....so you'd reason that they would be on the flashmxmagic website for download....that seems to have "magically" disappeared as well. Instead of rushing to publish this book so it would come out close to the release of Flash MX, the publishers should have made sure the website was up and that the cd contained final source files rather than demos of other macromedia software. This book is alright, but if you really want something intuitive, I'd recommend waiting until Phillip Kerman's Actionscripting in Flash comes out in July...or buying his book on Flash 5 actionscripting.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Another waste of time and money, February 27, 2003

By A Customer

I've been developing sites for over 5 years now. I don't know if that makes me an expert, as there is always something to learn, but I know a good book when I see and use one, and this is not it.

When I am given a project to follow along with, I need clear instructions that make sense. This book doesn't have them.

When I am given code to dissect, I need to make sure it works before hand. This book doesn't have it.

When I am given "final" examples, they should work. Heck, the example animations even play backwards in this book.

Don't waste your money. New Riders should be ashamed of putting this garbage on the market.