Description:
When a book calls itself an "official guide" to something, readers inevitably get a little skeptical. But, when you're dealing with an application that's as big as Macromedia Director is, an official guide actually is a welcome sight. Director 8 Demystified offers a much-needed road map to the latest version of the multimedia content creation tool; and, as the officially sanctioned guide, it offers a complete rundown of the new program. Written in part by the author of Director 7 Demystified and the author of the official Director and Lingo Authorized books for versions 7 and 8, this new book provides insight from a pair of experienced users, developers, and writers. Broken down into three well-illustrated main sections (four, if you count the one that contains appendices, references, and glossary), this massive volume starts with the basics of using Director, and then digs deeper into Lingo, scripting, handling multiple movies, and Shockwave. The third section, "Special Topics," goes into lengthy discussions on debugging, troubleshooting, using digital audio and video, and Xtras. Sidebars with tips; important points to remember, like compatibility issues; pointers to chapter numbers in which a mentioned topic was discussed previously; and, more importantly, new or changed features in version 8 appear frequently throughout the book. Although there also are plenty of exercises and examples, more project-based tutorials would have been welcome, especially something on large projects. Content, media management, and handling large content backups aren't dealt with in enough depth, either. Director 8 Demystified is an almost mandatory book for the serious Director user. Comprehensive, thorough, and filled with code snippets and examples, it should be bundled with Director itself. --Mike Caputo
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