Rating: 
Summary: GRABASTIC ACTIONSCRIPT REFERENCE!
Review: This book is extremely well written, no 'welcome to your comp-oo-tar' aproach, while remaining easy to understand and moving through the content at a good pace. Abundant tutorials and files acompany the book on the cd and each code snippet in the book is broken down in depth to let you know what each line means. I've been avoiding actionscript for years and this book has made it childsplay.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This is a book that caters for beginners to Flash, more advanced Flash 5 authors and everybody in between equally well and was just what I needed to make everything I knew about Flash coalesce. It offers clear, concise explanations on just about everything you need to know from simple topics such as creating a tween, to more advanced methods like using the XML objects. Each subject is covered in depth, avoids fatuous condescension and is presented in an interesting manner.The authors, particularly Derek Franklin, clearly love their subject and this comes over as infectious, imbuing the reader with a similar enthusiasm. This is not an ActionScript reference - there is a superb reference available from another author - but does not pretend to be. Instead, it tries and succeeds in painting a picture to illustrate the practicalities of using the wealth of features available within ActionScript, which is now beginning to look like a REAL programming language. But the best of all is this: If you have a problem, you can go to the web-site of one of the authors, (I won't say which one) and he might just be persuaded to help you find an answer... Thoroughly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Training, yes; Learning, less
Review: Let me start off by stating that I wanted to give this book a 3.5 star rating, but that option is unavailable. The lessons in this book are nicely written and well laid out. They are presented in a straight-forward, easy to understand format, and can be quite helpful to those without actionscripting experience. That having been said, however, I found the book lacking in execution. For one, the lessons, although helpful, do not really require you to learn actionscript, just rewrite it from the book. While this can help with a basic understanding of scripting, there are no exercises in the book that require putting that understanding into a practical application. Also, while working through the exercises, I noticed a number of little, yet crucial, mistakes in the scripts. These mistakes could result in major frustration to someone without the knowledge to find and correct them. Finally, why does a book such as this not have a comprehensive appendix of actionscript commands(event handlers, standard functions, etc.)? For a book specifically about actionscripting, too many times does the phrase "beyond the scope of this book" occur.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for medium-advanced users
Review: I have been working with Flash MX for almost a year and this book si really usefull. This is not an actionscript book for beginners although the text is very clear, but i think people with basic actionscript on their own will find this book very interesting.
After reading this book I started programming serious applications, and now i'm getting more into OOP with actionscript. GREAT BOOK, GREAT BUY.
Rating:
Summary: Best MX book out there.
Review: This is a great book for users versed with Flash 5, and Flash MX basics who are ready to indulge in the capabilities of Flash MX. Flash MX is a whole new world for web programmers to live in. Unbelievably diverse in its ability to keep users happy, allowing programmers to fully create business applications on the web that are cross browser compatible. Finally Flash has a real world business use. Almost anything you could do with HTML and images can be done in Flash MX. The extent of its capabilities does not end there. Flash Mx is now the centerpoint to applications using XML, ASP, JavaScript and Java. Flash 5 is left in the stoneage making each and every programmer wish that the MX plug-in was loaded on 100% of web browsers. This book gives great examples, and is a great reference for many of MX's new uses, and UI Components. I think this is the best MX book out there today.
Rating:
Summary: Want to learn ActionScripting?
Review: If you want to learn Macromedia Flash, you need to know ActionScripting. If you want to learn AS, this is the book that you are looking for.
Rating: 
Summary: Hardly Advanced Actionscript
Review: This book was a major let down. Given the title "Advanced Training," I was certainly expecting more than the book had to offer. The tutorials were long drawn out and unpractical real world situations. I could not foresee apply more than a fourth of what this book shows and the code is very poorly constructed and not very clean. If your an allready experienced Flash user and are looking for something to sharpen your skills I recommend looking else where than to this book. If your a novice Flash user this might be something of interest.
Rating:
Summary: Great book to get you started with MX
Review: Even though I was upset that there were no chapters on components, I will say that the book was not a disappointment. It lays a good foundation on all of the new objects available in Flash MX and has some really good examples. I especially liked the chapters on color and text...which really helped me to see the light.
Rating:
Summary: Ony One
Review: If you want to learn how to control flash and the correct use of Action Script then this is the book for you. If you only buy one book on action script then buy this one you will never need another I promise.
I have gone from a little understanding of action script to being able to write efficient code to control my flash movie's.
Rating:
Summary: Great textbook for Internet multimedia course
Review: For a very long time, I have been looking for a textbook for my course on Internet Multimedia. This is a course where students should go beyond basic Flash tweening and button pressing. There are many books about Flash and ActionScript. Unfortunately not many of them were suitable for such a course. Finally, I found exactly what I needed - this was the book by Derek Franklin. This book goes beyond the basics and introduces ActionScripting in a way that can be easily adopted for a university course. In each chapter, the author introduces theory and then, using examples, shows how to apply this theory. Examples are completed step by step with a detailed explanation of how each technique works. This way, he achieved a very well designed mix of a lecture and tutorial. As we know this kind of mix works well for all students. Even weak students can easily follow this text. The selection of topics in this book is quite impressive. It covers most of the concepts of ActionScript in Flash MX including using Flash with XML, online applications, as well as an almost complete syntax of ActionScript. There are hundreds of examples guiding us through each topic. However, there are no end-of-chapter examples, and if you wish to adopt this book for a course, you will have to invent them on your own. It is important to note the style of writing of this book. It is precise, with NOT too much talking; very clear and easy to follow. In fact, I was reading this book like an interesting novel. The language of this book is not too crowded with technical terms and jargon. So, if you are looking for an ActionScript programmer's guide or an ActionScript reference book, this is the wrong choice. However, if you are looking for a good textbook with strong pedagogical values, this is just the right book for you. In the next academic year, I am going to use this as the textbook for my course.
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