Rating: 
Summary: 50-50
Review: I found this to a mediocre purchase. I thoughtit was a bit overly complex at times. I did learn quite a bit though.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent choice
Review: As a certified macromedia instructor in Flash, I already know Flash and actionscript well, but am often challenged to find good resources that work for people at all levels. this book is hands down the best flash resource i have ever had. It has many advanced topics so I use it for myself and i recommend it to students both experienced and new to flash.
excellent book!
Rating:
Summary: Easy Reading
Review: I am a web graphics designer who likes to learn more than simply designing web pages. I am good at Flash but want to learn some scripting and programming. I enjoy this book very much because the examples work and the authors are very patient in explaining their ideas.I really recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn ActionScripting with Flash.
Rating: 
Summary: I am Enjoying Actionscripting
Review: I really enjoying actionscripting. the book together with the cd really brings things to light. It felt nice when I wrote my first script (with errors, but was able to solve them). The examples I found were relevant to the what I wanted to do, that is build a web page using flash. If you are familiar with flash 5 then you should have no problems with flash mx. I am a novice and I would recommend the book to anyone who is new to actionscripting. Best of all if you are like me and want to jump in without much reading, then the cd is available to work with. Now I feel ready to design a web page that I can be proud of...one that looks professionally done. Now I have to go because I really need to get back to my actionscripting...I am really enjoying this!!
Rating:
Summary: Simplicity and Power
Review: I f you want to be proficient at Flash, it's imperative that you learn Action Script. With several references on the market, how do you choose one that will give you not only confidence to learn how to script , but also will give you a plethora of pertinent examples that most web designers use? Look no further, Flash MX Actionscripting is a top choice! There are three reasons that make this book excellent :
1. Simplicity-Flash enables one to achieve the same results in several ways, and part of learning how to script is developing your own style. What I love about this book and Derek's teachings is one can achieve awesome interactive results writing in a straight forward and simplistic way. You'll learn to write expressions using dot syntax that create powerful actions. You'll learn a logical and orderly way of writing that will reduce needless lines of code, avoid possible mistakes or errors, and will give you a foundation that you can build on as you progress through the book. 2. Hands-on-taking Macromedia's Training from the Source method to the next step, this book allows you to quickly learn the scripting process (brackets, event handlers) by giving you projects, but it's power is in the explanations: lots of Flash books give you examples and an overview of the code, but seldom do they provide as much in-depth as this book does. You'll start to understand the "why's and how's" that will help you create some masterful projects of your own. 3. Writing-this is one of the forte's of this book. Have you ever had to read something redundantly until it made sense? Or after you read it you were more confused and defeated than before? Derek is a true teacher in his writings. Instead of giving you some geek foreign language, he uses every day examples that help you to immediately learn this new "foreign language" and gain confidence with each lesson. Since Flash gives you only a reference guide to Action Script, one must find a more detailed reference to take advantage of this power language-Flash MX Advanced Actionscripting by Derek Franklin and Jobe Makar is the answer!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: This book arrived by post at 06.57 in the morning - by late in the evening, I'd read through all 606 pages of it. I couldn't put it down. It is the most comprehensive book on ActionScripting I've ever seen and very easy to read. Best of all, for my money, is the fact that it fills in gaps which other books seem to leave uncovered. As a very general example, it explains things like 'levels' in a way in which it is very easy to understand, whereas I have other books which go 90% of the way, but which leave some tiny doubt as to the exact ramifications inherent in the usage.
The book is thorough in its treatment of every topic upon which it touches - and it touches many of them! It also covers pretty well all the new features of Flash MX: text objects, listeners, improved object orientation etc. and makes topics such as prototyping and how/why it is used, simple enough for anyone to understand. The book assumes no real prior knowledge of ActionScripting, or even programming in any form. What it does assume and quite rightly so, is a reasonable grasp of Flash itself. Had it not done so, it would not have been able to squeeze so much information into its 600-odd pages.
In short - this is a great book and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in getting to grips with the more in-depth aspects of Flash MX. Well done, Derek and Jobe!
Rating:
Summary: The book teaches what, how and why of the used actionscript.
Review: Every chapter starts what you will learn and why it is usefull for you to use it. With the assets-files you get an inspiring startingpoint for the project and every step in actionscript is really very well explained. The quality of the actionscript is very good. It is modular and easy to extend by using variables and functions. The completed files can be used not only to compare the final result, but also to copy and paste large portions of actionscript. I recommend this book for intermediate and junior-experts.
Rating:
Summary: Not an advanced book
Review: I agree with FLASHMAN on this. It is by no means an advanced book. I didn't even buy it. I just went to Barns and Noble and leafed through it and read several chapters. I was very dissappointed, as it was hailed as being the answere to flash designer's prayers. I am a designer, and was therefore put off by the cover to begin with...that aside...where is the content promised? If that is advanced I should be more highly paid for my skills, and maybe FLASHMAN and I could write a book on advanced actionscript. Now, I am certain that those two authors know more advanced and useful techniques than what is offered. I gave it three stars, simply because I thought it was well written and carried a writing style that is capable of offering an advanced level tutorial were macromedia willing to have them actually write an advanced book.
Rating:
Summary: Really Good Flash Scripting for Novices to Intermediates
Review: "Flash MX ActionScripting Advanced", by Derek Franklin and Jobe Makar, is for me as a novice Flash script writer very easy reading and extremely well presented. Actually, I began reading this text exactly at the point which interested me the most, namely at the last Chapter 17, "Loading External Assets", in order to create rolling banners comprised of individual animating flash movies. It was precisely this topic which lead me to buy this text. However, I could have easily been interested in sending and receiving data into a Flash "front end" from a server all of which is easily presented and understood in Chapter 11. It is this modular nature of "Flash MX ActionSripting Advanced" which is most compelling for me in recommending this text. I definitely appreciated also that there was a Windows/Mac CD disk for the source code and graphics necessary to complete each lesson chapter. As far as some other reviewers' disappointment that the ActionScript is not advanced enough for them, I would say that that critique may very well be true but simply and only for those advanced flashers. Look, Flash is difficult, no doubt about that. It not only comprises considerable graphics capabilities but also a mathematical capability called ActionScript which by the way almost always works in practically every and all browsers and operating systems unlike JavaScript (the technical reason for this is due to something called the DOM - Document Object Model - which is differently implemented in different browsers and different operating systems). For me, a novice, the ActionScripting presented in this text is given with considerable understanding for those persons ready to employ these mathematical capabilities of Flash at perhaps a beginning to intermediate level of expertise. Great for all of us Flash novices out there, a majority I would say! And the text does not discriminate as between Windows and Mac people!!
Rating:
Summary: Flash MX. Advanced...a wise investment.
Review: I've bought several books on Actionscripting, including several from Friends Of Ed. Most of them are confusing and poorly edited, riddled with grammar and spelling errors and have you hand-typing pages and pages of code without proper explanation. However, this isn't the case with FLASH MX ADVANCED by Derek Franklin and Jobe Makar. Each lesson clearly explains what you are doing and why. First they explain in correct English what we want the code to do, then they show us in bright, bold blue font how it translates into Actionscripting. The tutorials included on the CD guide you through each lesson step by step, explaning the code as you go along. There are several very practical applications that you could modify and apply for your own use. This book has some great tricks on loading dynamic mp3's and adjusting the volume on dynamically loaded sounds. It also guides you through several other new features to FlashMX. I was afraid of Actionscripting until I purchased this book. Leafing through the pages, this book held my hand as I experienced the most advanced scripting I have ever done. This book is for you if you are an avid flash user that has been using Flash for 2 years or so but haven't really caught on to all the extra Actionscripting that ships with each new version.
I highly recommend this book above all other FlashMX books out there on actionscripting....
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