ISBN:0321202988Book Description
You've seen its potential—its new extensible architecture, its faster run-time performance, its redesigned interface. Now it's time to tap it! When you're ready to sit down with a trusted instructor and learn the ins and outs of Macromedia's extensive upgrade to its popular interactive tool Flash MX 2004, this is the place to turn. Using lessons based on real-life projects, this friendly guide takes you by the hand and leads you through the world of Flash MX 2004, covering its new interface, its drawing and color tools, animation basics, symbols and instances, motion, bitmaps, buttons, movie clips, ActionScript, sound, components and forms, video, and more. You can follow the book's clear, step-by-step exercises at your own pace and view the techniques in action on the accompanying CD's QuickTime tutorials. (The CD also includes project and sample files.) In next to no time, you'll be integrating video, text, audio, and graphics into immersive, rich experiences with Flash MX 2004.
/p>Reviews From AMAZON.COM
The HOT books do it again
Well, I learn by doing, and these books are a hit in my opinion.
It DOES start a little slow, but it works its way up, and all in all, I learned a LOT. I had NO experience in Flash. I'm a programmer by trade. After this book, I was able to hit the action-script tutorial online, as well as the Flash/PHP tutorials, and had no problem understanding what was going on. I just bought the "Beyond The Basics" book, and plan to go through it next.
Only buy it if it's required
Ya know, I'm up to chapter 5 in my class that uses this book, and it hasn't taught me anything that I couldn't have learned on my own via online flash tutorials. Sure, it may have required me getting on google and searching (god forbid), but come on.
I can only recommend this if you need it for a class, and even so, you can probably find it on an auction site. $40 is too much IMO, and considering it only comes with a 30-day trial of the program (which I'm sure you can get elsewhere for free), it's plain not worth it considering you can find it elsewhere. Buy the student version of the program and find the book on an auction site.