Director 8 Demystified

Rating:
Summary: Great source for Lingo
Review: Despite the title, this book is the best source for learning Lingo, especially if you're a beginner. I didn't find this out until recently, while shopping for a book on Lingo. After looking over several books, such as Director In A Nutshell, I found myself intimidated by all the scripting and technical jargon associated with Lingo. I was looking for a book that could explain each aspect of Lingo in simplistic terms augemented by examples (both in the book and on CD). After weeks of searching, I discovered that the best source for Lingo was already in my possession. Initially, I bought the book for my college classes, but eventually, because of desperation, I decided to refer to it for examples in Lingo. To my surprise, it covered everything I needed to know plus gave tips on how to efficiently apply the language.

This is a great book for learning Lingo as well as the rest of Director. I recommend it to anyone who is beginning to learn the software. The content is easy to follow and ...can learn to create simple movies easily. The only subject that this book doesn't get into deeply is Shockwave. There is a short chapter on it, but it doesn't go beyond the basics. However, there are other books such as Shocking the Web that can get you up to speed on Shockwave. Other than that, I have no complaints about the book and will always use it whenever I have a problem with Director.

Rating:
Summary: Great source for Lingo
Review: Despite the title, this book is the best source for learning Lingo, especially if you're a beginner. I didn't find this out until recently, while shopping for a book on Lingo. After looking over several books, such as Director In A Nutshell, I found myself intimidated by all the scripting and technical jargon associated with Lingo. I was looking for a book that could explain each aspect of Lingo in simplistic terms augemented by examples (both in the book and on CD). After weeks of searching, I discovered that the best source for Lingo was already in my possession. Initially, I bought the book for my college classes, but eventually, because of desperation, I decided to refer to it for examples in Lingo. To my surprise, it covered everything I needed to know plus gave tips on how to efficiently apply the language.

This is a great book for learning Lingo as well as the rest of Director. I recommend it to anyone who is beginning to learn the software. The content is easy to follow and ...can learn to create simple movies easily. The only subject that this book doesn't get into deeply is Shockwave. There is a short chapter on it, but it doesn't go beyond the basics. However, there are other books such as Shocking the Web that can get you up to speed on Shockwave. Other than that, I have no complaints about the book and will always use it whenever I have a problem with Director.

Rating:
Summary: LO MEJOR DE TODO
Review: Es lo máximo en libro, es el tutopial y la guía de respaldo mejor que he visto

Rating:
Summary: Director 8 Demystified
Review: Extensive wealth of knowledge for beginner to intermediate multimedia users. Good buy, especially because when broadband catches on, Director will be the premier program for the web.

Rating:
Summary: Quick, Easy, and a very good guide for learning Director 8
Review: I am a computer programmer stepping into the world of Authoring tools to help me build projects more quickly. I have recently learned Macromedia DreamWeaver UltraDev and Flash 5 and was intimidated by the Director trial. Upon purchasing the full version, this was the first book I bought.

I found this book very educational in the concepts shown. I was able to immediately grasp the Director paradigms and comfortable in using the program. It was well paced and focused a decent bit on Lingo which was important to me (although it placed plenty of emphasis on the other aspects of Director 8.

The examples could have been more interesting but they were very functional devices for understanding the concepts being taught.

One chapter in particular stands out over all other books I've seen for other tools. Ch. 10 Building The Interactive Movie provides a walkthrough of the process a developer should take when designing/building a new project with Director. It is only about 40 pages, but is very well put together along with a specific "useful" demonstration project. It was placed in exactly the right place after learning a decent bit about Director.

There is also a very handy Reference in the back for the Lingo language. This lexicon will be a valuable resource in future development.

As of the writing of this review, I am only half way through this book and it has already been well worth the money and time. I'm looking forward to the second half. I would recommend anyone using Director 8 for the first time to buy this book!

Rating:
Summary: one book for you...
Review: I am a student at the moment, We use this Big Book for learning advance Director, mostly for Lingo. This book is just what anyone needs to learn Director, how can you go wrong with a big book like this. The order of this book is little odd, could of done better job for the starters, Next step learning 8.5... here I come..

Rating:
Summary: Lingo is still mystified.
Review: I have been playing with programming for a little over a year. I took a couple of java classes to start, which were mainly geared toward creating applets. That experience showed me that the best way to learn was to get a good book, because you can buy about 6 or 8 expensive books (or more) for the price of one expensive class, and the classes are reprises of some book or other. It's a matter of finding the right book, or at least a good book. I'm not going to rave about this book. It's good, and it got me well started with director, but I'm glad I had the other programming experience (I've played with VB as well) to make Lingo a little more accessible. Lingo is a powerful and complex language in its own right, and it is the real power in Director. You will have an animation going in the first hour you use this book, but expect to have to create some new neural pathways to understand Lingo as you get deeper into it. I am writing this to give my brain a much needed break from the Ancestor, Parent, Child coding that is director's version of classes and instances, and to warn you of what you will encounter. There is a 400 page lexicon of the language at the end of the book, which I am sure will be handy once I accept that I have to get a handle on it. I understand the popularity of Flash now, it does what java applets claimed they would do but in a much more user friendly envoirenment (evolution I guess), but it doesn't go as far as director in it's language potential. I belive that Director can do a great deal of what the rest of java promises as well - director isn't just for the web. Buy the book, but don't expect an easy road.

Rating:
Summary: Get This Book!
Review: I was familiar with Flash yet very intimidated to try and learn Director, but this book presented itself clearly and conscisely. Right from the start it gets you through the most basic tasks, giving you really great tips and hints along the way. I was impressed with how much I could create with the program after just one day. It's extremely well written in easy to understand. Don't let its size intimidate you, (1200+ pages)...its well worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Director 8 Demystified
Review: Of all the applications I've self-taught, Macromedia Director has got to be the toughest one to find a concise tutorial publication for. I tried the Visual Quickstart, which is just that: program features in depth, with no practical exercises. I tried Training from the Source, which focussed mostly on the 3D capabilities, only slightly skimming the rest of this massive program's productivity tools. It seemed for a while there was no one book I could use to get up and running with Director; at one point I literally had four books piled on each other to use as a cross reference!

The reason I put off checking out this title was because it didn't cover 8.5, which is what I'm using .... now I'm kicking myself for all the time and money I could have saved picking it up to begin with. The only difference between 8.0 and 8.5 is the 3D tools, and frankly (at least for now) that is a trivial plus to this industry standard, interactive media development tool that I've wanted to get a handle on since getting my first Mac back in '93.

Starting with a guided tour of the interface, working through simple step-by-step fundamental exercises, and culminating in a massive Lingo glossary, I'm happy to say my search for the all-in-one-book beginner's guide to Macromedia Director is over. Replete with screenshots galore, as well as a CD rom with tutorial materials and tantalizing sample files (including one created for Oingo Boingo, now how cool is THAT), I must concede with the other reviewers in this section that "Demystified" is the ultimate starting place for Macromedia's defining application, hands down. Now, if only there were more hours to the day ....

Rating:
Summary: The Search is Over ....
Review: Of all the applications I've self-taught, Macromedia Director has got to be the toughest one to find a concise tutorial publication for. I tried the Visual Quickstart, which is just that: program features in depth, with no practical exercises. I tried Training from the Source, which focussed mostly on the 3D capabilities, only slightly skimming the rest of this massive program's productivity tools. It seemed for a while there was no one book I could use to get up and running with Director; at one point I literally had four books piled on each other to use as a cross reference!

The reason I put off checking out this title was because it didn't cover 8.5, which is what I'm using .... now I'm kicking myself for all the time and money I could have saved picking it up to begin with. The only difference between 8.0 and 8.5 is the 3D tools, and frankly (at least for now) that is a trivial plus to this industry standard, interactive media development tool that I've wanted to get a handle on since getting my first Mac back in '93.

Starting with a guided tour of the interface, working through simple step-by-step fundamental exercises, and culminating in a massive Lingo glossary, I'm happy to say my search for the all-in-one-book beginner's guide to Macromedia Director is over. Replete with screenshots galore, as well as a CD rom with tutorial materials and tantalizing sample files (including one created for Oingo Boingo, now how cool is THAT), I must concede with the other reviewers in this section that "Demystified" is the ultimate starting place for Macromedia's defining application, hands down. Now, if only there were more hours to the day ....