Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive but confusing
Review: As I expected from most "training from the source" books, it covers most of the basic ingredients in flash; hence, it is comprehensive for beginners and intermediate users. However, as mentioned in some other reviews, the instructions are not consistent. The numbered sentences in bold often give the reader an overview of what one is about to do, even if they sound like they are giving the reader the actual instructions (correcting this redundancy may shorten the book, and lower the price!). The succeeding sentences then give step-by-step instructions on what to actually do. In some instances, however, the sentences in bold were the instructions themselves. Consistency would have made everything clearer. Moreover, some explanations and instructions were a little vague--which file, layer, or frame was I supposed to be working on? At other times, library or stage items were missing after being asked to open a particular file. It was quite confusing. I honestly think the book needs a 2nd edition.
Rating: 
Summary: horribly tedious...
Review: Boy, was this book a pain! I had to slog through numerous detailed examples of creating user interface graphics and buttons before ever getting to animate anything. That book is wayyyy too detailed and focused on one application - creating a UI for a "rich application" web site. Also, the book is often inaccurate, especially for Mac users. I was ready to forget about Flash forever.Instead, I bought "Macromedia Flash MX 2004: Hands On Training" by Rosanna Cheung, and it turned me totally around. I can't believe how much difference a book can make in revealing the beauty of a piece of software. It starts right out with animation, and it is aimed at the right level of detail (at least for me). Also, it has very effective sidebars to thoroughly explain concepts as they come up, so it can be used as a reference (unlike the other book). Thanks, Rosanna!
Rating:
Summary: Not a Good Intro to Flash
Review: Have you noticed that all of the positive reviews have come from Toronto, Canada? Have you noticed that the author herself is also Canadian?? Please read on for my honest assessment of this title... This book is a very poor resource for people looking to make a commercial application in Flash. The author works from a palette using only "MX 2004" to develop and the Flash 7 player to view. Virtually NO ONE has Flash 7 yet: Macromedia just prompted me to install it today, 2/19/04. However, if you try to pull up the authors "Tech Bookstore" website with Flash 6 or any previous version of Flash IT WILL NOT EVEN LOAD. The author instead prompts you to download Flash 7, and if you dont have Flash 7 (or cant install it, for lack of system permissions etc.) you will not be doing your shopping with her. This is a completely unacceptable way to build a web application and run a business online. In Jen deHaan's world, all of her customers will be using Flash 7, end of story. She makes no effort to even point out how to make her site compatable with the vast majority of Flash players in the world (again, as of Feb 2004). For the developer who tries to use this book without having "MX 2004" (say instead, just plain ol' "MX") you will find it completely useless. Every Flash example the author provides has been saved so it can only be opened in "MX 2004" - no matter how basic the examples function is. For the casual user who tries to use this book to make their first website: good luck. This book is nearly 500 pages, and the reading isn't very engaging. The author opens up the book with such an overwhelming amount of material on text and graphics, that by the time you get to animate anything (on page 134) you will be bored stiff. It would be nice if the author broached Actionscript earlier to excite or entice reader a little bit because, after all, using Flash is supposed to be fun. This books audience is the academic who needs to know every minute detail that is new to Flash 7, and is developing for an audience of early adopters who find their passion in updating software weekly. If this does not apply to you, I would suggest finding another Flash book more geared to your goals.
Rating:
Summary: Create a web site with Flash. Not!
Review: I bought this book after reading Macromedia's "Training from the Source" book on Dreamweaver MX 2004, which I enjoyed. Unfortunately I found this book disappointing. The book focuses on developing a web site in Flash, something which I have no interest in doing. The web site is bare-bones and rather boring, and it is hard to sustain interest in working through the tutorials. I quit about five chapters in. Perhaps I'm missing something, but why would anyone want to use Flash to create a web site? To enhance a web site, yes. But this book focuses on building a web site from scratch exclusively within Flash. Perhaps this is the trend of the future, and I'm simply behind the times, but this book just didn't address my interest in learning Flash. I'm not interested in using it to do what Dreamweaver does well enough, and with much more ease! I also didn't think that this book was as well written as the Dreamweaver book in the same series (but by a different author)). In the Dreamweaver book the steps in the tutorials are presented in bold face, followed by more detailed comments on the significance of the particular actions taken. In the book under review here, the format is superficially the same, but the instructions in bold are not really instructions. They are brief introductions to the steps to be taken without being detailed and specific enough to follow. The text that follows contains the actual instructions. This is needlessly confusing and awkward.
Rating:
Summary: Create a web site with Flash. Not!
Review: I bought this book after reading Macromedia's "Training from the Source" book on Dreamweaver MX 2004, which I enjoyed. Unfortunately I found this book disappointing. The book focuses on developing a web site in Flash, something which I have no interest in doing. The web site is bare-bones and rather boring, and it is hard to sustain interest in working through the tutorials. I quit about five chapters in. Perhaps I'm missing something, but why would anyone want to use Flash to create a web site? To enhance a web site, yes. But this book focuses on building a web site from scratch exclusively within Flash. Perhaps this is the trend of the future, and I'm simply behind the times, but this book just didn't address my interest in learning Flash. I'm not interested in using it to do what Dreamweaver does well enough, and with much more ease! I also didn't think that this book was as well written as the Dreamweaver book in the same series (but by a different author)). In the Dreamweaver book the steps in the tutorials are presented in bold face, followed by more detailed comments on the significance of the particular actions taken. In the book under review here, the format is superficially the same, but the instructions in bold are not really instructions. They are brief introductions to the steps to be taken without being detailed and specific enough to follow. The text that follows contains the actual instructions. This is needlessly confusing and awkward.
Rating: 
Summary: easy for me, I highly recommend
Review: I got this book because it was I think one of the first ones out there. Sometimes that worries me about computer books because you know they were written on testing software that isn't complete, which can mean the book has a lot of problems. That didn't seem to be the case here though, apart from some minor issues like typos and stuff. This book had a lot more in it than I expected. I have seen other tutorial books that only cover Flash and really basic ActionScript. But this book had a LOT in it for a beginner book, and a ton of ActionScript! And by the end it all made sense to me, which I was surprised about. If you are considering getting this book, I really recommend it. You will be taught in an excellent way, easy to follow and understand plus there is supporting material.
Rating: 
Summary: Really good book, but not enough reference info as other
Review: I just finished a course that used this book, and the book (and the course!) was really good. All of us actually finished the application without a problem, and it was a lot of fun too and really interesting. We learned a lot about Flash, and I feel like I'm ready to create my own sites using these techniques. We built a lot of very useful things with this book, so I think it's a keeper. If you are looking for a reference or just how to do drawing and animation, this isn't the right book for you though. That's the main issue, is that there isn't the same level of information as a reference book.
Rating:
Summary: Easy and detailed
Review: I just finished working through this book on the holidays, and it is very easy to follow along and I learned a lot more about Flash in the end. I'm surprised in how much was covered in the 500ish pages, and it has made me less nervous about using Flash in my company. But I'm very impressed with how easy it was made and how much the website you build has in it. I expected to have a tough time because I don't know anything, but I made my way through with no problems. I even emailed with some extra questions and got an answer the next day. I have some of the older macromedia training from the source books on different programs, and this one follows the same format which I like. If you don't mind big long tutorials, then I recommend this book. The only reason I subtract a star is because I think the chapter on ActionScript was too long to be a single chapter, and it would be better in shorter amounts for the readers.
Rating: 
Summary: helped a lot
Review: I liked this book because it really put together the most useful things a person needs to know starting out building a site in a way I could understand it. I didn't expect this much, so I was pleasantly surprised in it. You don't learn how to build a weak site that only has a menu, some buttons and a bit of text, pictures or whatever, but you actually have streaming video, loading data, forms, and all that stuff - and it's even understandable. So I really think this book would be good for a lot of people because using it I got my own site up in only two weeks.
Rating:
Summary: Same book?
Review: I'm not sure if I am reading the same book as these other guys here. I bought this book because I wanted to build an web application with Flash MX 2004 (not the only animate!), and learn the kinds of things it can do. You need this version of Flash to do that... and at least that's what this book does! I really liked how it took some of the more complex things in Flash and made them really simple, which I don't think can too easy and why some of the steps are long. Maybe itis, I dont know. But I could follow along and I'm just starting out and I wasn't really bored by this book or thinking that it was confusing or anything. I'm glad I didn't read those because I wanted to build an application including all the different things and use the things in 2004 to do it and that's what this book does and you learn lots.
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