Rating: 
Summary: Eat this book
Review: I just recieved Flash MX 2004 HOT in the mail Dec. 31, 2003 - right on time for 2004 :) Thanks!!! I would had purchased the MX2004 Flash Bible, but its not available yet. Instead, I purchased Rosanna Yeung's user friendly book. One of the first things I did when I opened up the book was pop in the included tutorial CD that is loaded with wonderful examples and exercises. I especially enjoyed Rosanna's Quicktime tutorial movies relating to basic Action Script (controlMC.mov, loadMovieNum.mov, menu.mov, motionGuide.mov, musicSelector.mov, mutplShpTwn.mov, onion.mov, stop_play_actions.mov, stopAndPlay.mov, stopAndPlayMC.mov). The final Xboarding site .swf example pulls all the tutorials together... Nice Job! I would have enjoyed an additional chapter pertaining to .xml, as this seems to be essential knowledge for dynamic content, i.e. sound files, video, picts... etc. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a user friendly guide. Thanks again!
Rating:
Summary: Easy way to learn
Review: I needed to take a graphic character apart, and have the pieces fly back together on the website. With just a little reading and a little playing, I figured it out. The book shows good logic in the manner it presents its lessons. Admittedly without the background I have in Photoshop and understanding layers, it might have been more difficult to figure out.
Rating:
Summary: Very Easy and Powerful book
Review: I worked with Swishmax for about a year and wanted to learn about real FLASH. Let me tell you guys the interface is completely different. I knew nothing in flash. I purchased this book completed pages and pages of the book so quickly and learning all the material. This book is a great beginners book and a recommendation to all newbies. You'll be amazed how fast you learn flash 2004 MX. I'm ready for my next book in only a few weeks. Easy to read, "HANDS ON TRAINING" as stated. Good Job.
Rating:
Summary: Just started....
Review: I'm a novice to Flash. Got up to chapter 6 so far and must say I'm really enjoying it. Can't wait to get further and start on my own projects. Exercises are detailed and easy to understand. Very good book.
Better than the 'beginners class' I took not too long ago.
Rating:
Summary: great intro
Review: I'm a professional software developer, and I have little patience for most programming books and classes. I recently decided to learn Flash, and decided to try this book based on the "hands on" exercises. I'm completely satisfied! The descriptions and overviews are clear and well written, and the step by step exercises walk you through the important tools and techniques. I skipped a few exercises that seemed redundant, but others may want the additional reinforcement.There's a LOT to Flash, and an intro book can't possibly cover it all. I'm already forgetting a few things from the first exercises. But based on this book, I now feel comfortable and competent to develop basic Flash animations and interactive files, and to explore further on my own. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Flash.
Rating:
Summary: great intro
Review: I'm a professional software developer, and I have little patience for most programming books and classes. I recently decided to learn Flash, and decided to try this book based on the "hands on" exercises. I'm completely satisfied! The descriptions and overviews are clear and well written, and the step by step exercises walk you through the important tools and techniques. I skipped a few exercises that seemed redundant, but others may want the additional reinforcement. There's a LOT to Flash, and an intro book can't possibly cover it all. I'm already forgetting a few things from the first exercises. But based on this book, I now feel comfortable and competent to develop basic Flash animations and interactive files, and to explore further on my own. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Flash.
Rating:
Summary: great intro
Review: I'm a professional software developer, and I have little patience for most programming books and classes. I recently decided to learn Flash, and decided to try this book based on the "hands on" exercises. I'm completely satisfied! The descriptions and overviews are clear and well written, and the step by step exercises walk you through the important tools and techniques. I skipped a few exercises that seemed redundant, but others may want the additional reinforcement. There's a LOT to Flash, and an intro book can't possibly cover it all. I'm already forgetting a few things from the first exercises. But based on this book, I now feel comfortable and competent to develop basic Flash animations and interactive files, and to explore further on my own. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn Flash.
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive and eloquently written
Review: Never before have I encountered such an eloquently written book that takes the complex intertwining web of design and programming and amalgamated them so fluidly into something that is not only intellectually digestable but delightfully savoring. If you are a novice or a guru, Rosanna Yeung has created a powerful new weapon that empowers you to revolutionize the web space with new innovations that combine design, animation and programming. In the tradition of the Lynda Weinmann Hand's on training series, this book can serve as the best alternative to an actual instructional classroom minus the drive time and limited pace. As E.B. White and Strunk's Elements of Style was to grammer and writting, Rosanna Yeung's H.O.T. Macromedia Flash MX 2004 is to web design.
Rating:
Summary: Its not just for animations any more!
Review: Once upon a time in the world of computers, there was just a scant few languages, mostly just text displays, and the Internet the sole domain of universities. Things became complicated fast, and today it seems like you need a specific tool to do anything. Unless you spend a lot of time reading computer magazines, and just keeping up, it's hard to know what tools are useful. Flash, was a nice product to spruce up, and enhance a boring website a few years ago. It had a few extra features beyond that, but it was still just more of a niche product. How things have changed in a few years. Today you can build many websites from the ground up with flash. It has many of the programming features of JAVA, and even subscribes to the object-oriented programming model. The animation features are now easier than ever to implement, making even the less creative among us, seem a little more artistic. It is still lacking in the world of database connectivity, but that is rumored to be coming. This book does a nice job with Flash MX basics, expanding later to the more detailed features. As a programmer, when I first learned Windows-based programming, I had to search through hundreds of books, to find one that covered the basics. It seemed like every book assumed you already knew how to program Windows! I had programmed Macintosh, and the Windows method was much different. Here I'm thankful to get a book, which just doesn't assume I'm already a Flash Guru.
Hey, I know most of us are a bit turned off by the prospect of another, nearly 1000-page book. Still, the interactive CD ROM lessons get you up, and running quickly. The detail of the book is not just another printed reference. It's a real explanation on how to use features, step by step, and to create something. The smaller books, either only do high-level features, or cut parts they think will be seldom used. It always seems like the features they cut down on, are the ones I need to use in a project. Kudos here to the author, on writing a book that's useful, despite its massive girth.
Rating:
Summary: spanktacular
Review: so far I am glas i did not spend the money on an other class, save you mony use the book, all you need is some motivation. the exersizes are fun, there are no missing steps, everything is thoroughly explains, the lay out is consistantly through the entire book, so you do not have to relearn how to use the book every chapter, as a matter of fact, I used the PhotoShop and ImageReady for the Web, and Dreamweaver befor, and the lay out is the same there too.
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