Rating: 
Summary: Very Helpful Book And Authors
Review: I bought the Flash4 Bible approx 3 months ago. It was my first step towards learning Flash and also the first book i bought on the subject of Flash Animation. I have since read almost the entire thing and have become comfortable with designing in Flash and I highly recommend the book. I have also spoken to one of the Authors (Jon Lentz) personally on a few tips and he was very helpful and fast with his responses. This type of customer satisfaction really impressed me. Good Job Guys
Rating: 
Summary: Great Starting Point!
Review: This book is designed for 'Beginner to Advanced' and I beleivethis is true. I think it gives new users the foundation they need toget started. I would have like them authors to get much deeper into ActionScript (which I feel is EXTREMELY NECESSARY to create a truely interactive web site) that part of the book was very vague. The other books I have seen for Flash were not much more than the instructions for Flash: they only tell you how to operate the program. As far as the rest: right on target! NOTE: please do alot of searching the web for GREAT Falsh Tutorials. Most places I've been to offer exactly what I needed to know and were FREE! In closing. well worth it to the beginner!...
Rating:
Summary: Great Book that Explains the Concepts Behind Flash 4
Review: I love this book. I felt I only knew Flash in pieces but couldn't make sense of all of the principles until this book easily made sense of them. "Tell Target Explained" That kind of information gave me a better underlying understanding of the program so that I could make sense of all of the scripting (with no directions or explanations)in FLASH 4 MAGIC. I already had the basics down on how to tween, etc., etc. so this book put the pieces of the puzzle together. If only someone had an amazing book on advanced scripting, etc...ADVANCED! life would be perfect.
Rating:
Summary: For all the levels that want to achive expert level in flash
Review: If you want to learn topnotch flash, or if you know already flash and want a book that will teach some nifty tricks/reference, then this is the book for you! The book is devided to sections, each section teaches you how to make flash presentations, and tricks to how can you make the presentation amazing. no metter if you are a novice or someone that already read a flash book - this is the book for everyone that want to consider himself good in flash. the book expends even more then that, to teach you how can you use different programs to help you make better flash.
Rating:
Summary: super
Review: I have the book right beside my computer, its great to thumb through, you can always pick up something. Thanks for it! It is super.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for online tutorials... links death....
Review: This is a great example of how to use the online tutorials. The book is good because it teach every single tool of the program (in the first 5 chapters), but concerning the idea of development is too poor. I got this note from the authors who let me know that they do not care about the book: "Hi, On behalf of myself and my co-author, Robert Reinhardt, I thank you for your recent correspondence... We are presently in the initial phases of revising our book, in addition, I am beginning another title and also trying to keep up with my freelance design work. (Personal life, don't even ask!) Consequently, we are unable to devote as much attention as we would like to our Flash Bible correspondents. We're also unable to troubleshoot our reader's Flash files... there's simply too much work involved. Finally, as regards our website, theFlashBible.com... we sincerely apologize. We now realize that this was a mistake on our part. The sad truth is that we here were some difficulties in the production of the book that forced us to do a lot of additional work, which meant that there wasn't enough time for us to develop the site the way we had originally planned. . . Once the whole affair was over and done we had to focus on our next projects. Again, we apologize. As regards the links in our book, although we were surprised to note how many sites that we cited have either changed or disappeared (who would jettison such free publicity?) we have no control over the changes that occur with other people's sites on the web. If it's any help, I have a bookmark file of Flash related tutorials and resources. I attach this herewith in hopes that it may offset the skeletal nature of our site..." I'm not saying the book is bad, just that we as readers should get the attention of the authors. Why is it that the homepage of the book does not link? What happened with the chapters online? The answers are above...
Rating: 
Summary: A disorganized Mess
Review: Wow is the book complicated. I don't know who posted those 5 star reviews but I was extremely dissappointed by this book. I expected better but what I receieved was a book that seems to be put together from 6 other books. The book is hard to follow and the authors don't seem to know much about Flash 4. Save your money on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Inaccurate, misleading and VERY disappointing
Review: A book this size (it's big) is bound to have numerous mistakes (it sure does) but it gets worse. False advertising? The cover and the text state that a demo of the 3D Studio plug-in Illustrate is included on the CD. It's not. I wrote the publisher. They stated that they didn't get permission. You would think they'd do this before going to press? Content is poor and somewhat confusing. I think the authors got confused about their objectives. They glance off numerous topics and end up causing confusion and frustration. A good example of shoddy workmanship is illustrated by the books 'official' web site which is liberally mentioned through out the text. It's terrible. Out of 19 links only 3 work, and 2 of them are biographies of the authors. So ONLY 1 link works! Some links report "coming soon" but most links don't react at all, nothing, nada, zilch. The book was published in February so the web site should be operational by now. I returned my copy after wasting many hours. Save yourself a lot of grief and send a message to the authors and publisher by leaving this one on the shelf (although it doesn't belong there either).
Rating:
Summary: Good Beginner to Intermediate Book
Review: This book spends the first 200 pages covering the basics of the flash tools, creating graphics, animating techniques, and sound integration. Then it dives into the good stuff: Flash interactivity (i.e. Actions/Event handlers, Movies, ActionScript). Then the book covers interactivity with other programs: Raster graphics, Vector Graphics, Quicktime, etc. Finally distributing your flash movies. I gave this four stars because I found the 150 pages of "Using Flash with Other Programs" marginally useful. To have been a really great book I would have liked to have seen more JavaScript, advanced control usage (i.e. combobox, listbox, slidercontrol), and "page-to-page" information transferral examples (all intermediate to advanced concepts). This book also makes a good overall reference and has a decent index.
Rating:
Summary: The Flash Bible--with a hole in the middle
Review: Reading through these reviews, you can clearly see a pattern of complaints. Having used the Flash 4 Bible for 6 weeks now in developing a multimedia online training course (in concert with several other Macromedia programs), I would like to respond to some of these complaints. Complaint #1. There is not enough material on ActionScript. This is the great weakness of the book, and it is indeed crippling. If you want to learn about ActionScript, you will have to go to online tutorials at flashlite.com, webmonkey.com, flashplanet.com, flashaddict.com, or flashkit.com. This is especially frustrating because Macromedia's Flash User Guide is weak in this area, so there is considerable demand for some good documentation on ActionScript. Since the Bible series claims to "do it all," this volume definitely gets heat for this one. Complaint #2: There is virtually no documentation on FS scripts. FS scripts were the predecessor of Flash ActionScript, and my understanding is that Macromedia implemented ActionScript in Flash 4 to make scripting interactivity easier than the complex FS Scripts. We could thus forgive the authors for not including much documentation on FS Script--but only if they had at least covered ActionScript with any credibility. Nonetheless, for most new Flash users, the lack of FS Script documentation probably doesn't matter as much as the lack of ActionScript documentation. Complaint #3: The authors spend too much time discussing using Flash with other programs. This complaint I would have to disagree with. Flash, like PageMaker, Quark Xpress, Acrobat PDF, and any web authoring program (e.g., Dreamweaver), is a package that assembles content developed in other applications for final publication. That is, you will pull in drawings and storyboards from vector drawing programs (FreeHand, Illustrator), image editing programs (Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro), and word processors. I think it is both helpful and totally appropriate to have extensive documentation on working with these kinds of programs. And I think most people wouldn't mind this coverage so much were the book not lacking in precisely the area that we all hoped for the most: coverage of ActionScript. I have spent time with perhaps 6 Flash 4 books, and sadly, this one is the most comprehensive and the most useful overall. All of them cover basic illustration and animation in great detail--but so does Macromedia's Flash User Guide. My Flash Bible has seen a lot of use--but so has my printer, as I have printed out several tutorials from the Flash sites listed above. Go ahead and buy it--but don't be surprised at the great hole in the middle.
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