Macromedia Flash MX 2004 ActionScript : Training from the Source

Rating:
Summary: Fundamenta
Review: If you're looking for a a book that teaches you all-inclusive how to program ActionScript2 resourcfully than that's the one you must have! I'm coming from the pearl/php/vb environment and it was a breeze working myself into the new Flash language.
I may sound a little too enthusiastic... but this one I can recommend without any reservation.
You're getting dirty hands from the beginning; every chapter tells you how to work with the source files on the CD to pull you thru. There are Examples for every aspect.
While some people do not recommend it as a reference... well, so do I. But it is obviously not ment to be one. For a good reference you mitght consider buying the one from O'Reilly.
Sorry... any grammatical errors in this comment are due to the fact that I'm Swiss.

Rating:
Summary: Great tutorial, so-so reference
Review: This book contains a series of great tutorials on the most common ActionScript tasks you might encounter. It starts with the basics, so even the non-programmer should be able to get up to speed quickly. I also use it as a reference book sometimes, but I usually have to extract the info I need from one of the tutorials, making it hard to track down the one line of code I need. I usually use it by doing tutorials similar to projects I'm working on, so that I can immediately practic and apply what I've learned. The included CD is top-notch with all of the files you need for the tutorials and more. I highly recommend this book, although you might want to buy a reference book too (or just try the Flash help menu - it's vastly improved over previous versions).

Rating:
Summary: A great second book on Flash
Review: You finished Kerman's book (Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash MX 2004 in 24 Hours -- the best first book on Flash), and you're looking for your next step toward Flash mastery. You liked the approach of learning by example; of working with complete small projects that show how to use Flash features. And you're more of a programmer than an artist; what you want is more control over your animations, rather than more eye candy. Well, look no further; Derek Franklin and Jobe Makar have the book for you!

This book will show you how to do a lot of things with Actionscript, including drawing new objects, moving clips around the stage dynamically, playing sounds, working with data from databases, and bringing in sounds and images from external files. You get working examples of everything they show.

This is an updated version of the authors' earlier book, Macromedia Flash MX ActionScripting: Advanced Training from the Source. All the programs have been modified to be consistent with Flash MX 2004 programming style, especially including the use of typed variables. There is also an extensive chapter on working with components, completely updated for the 2.0 component architecture of Flash MX 2004. If you already have the earlier book, you will find a lot of repeated material here.