Rating: 
Summary: An Outstanding Book !!
Review: I bought this book just a 2 months ago, and now I'm developing professional flash aplications. This book does cover EVERYTHING there is to know about flash, in a method that even people with little or no background in flash can read and understand. The book gave me a solid understanding of the main concepts of Flash 5, and started me on my way in learning Action Scripting. I would highly recomend this book to anyone seeking to learn Flash 5, the easy way!
Rating: 
Summary: There are better "beginner" Flash 5 books available.
Review: I can't really say that this book is "bad", although I can say that I did not find it at all useful so I returned it. This book falls under the category of a "project oriented how-to" style book as opposed to a "reference" style book (see my review of "Foundation Flash 5"). If you are a total beginner and are looking for a book to hold your hand while you learn new concepts, this book does that. You work on little "projects" that demonstrate different techniques and tools. The title of the book is a big exaggeration (you could also say blatant lie), as almost everything here is basic.The problem is if you are not a beginner. This is NOT a reference or advanced book. If you have a question (about something simple) and need the answer to it, you can't just look it up in the index and turn to the page. You will find yourself on step 26 (or whatever) of a larger project that you'd have to trace back to the beginning and follow up until that point. Sometimes this isn't a big deal as nothing here gets TOO complex, but I found it frustrating how brief some explanations were and always closed the book and looked up the problem in one of the many other excellent reference books ("Flash 5 Bible", "Flash 5 Visual Quickstart" [1st & Advanced editions]). The ActionScript section is particularly light and glosses over many concepts without REALLY explaining them. You really don't venture too far from the "Basic" actions. Again, to learn from point "A", this book has it's merit (although I personally liked "Foundation Flash 5" better). The price certainly is right. You couldn't really LEARN the program from scratch by reading the "Flash 5 Bible" or any other "reference" book. You would probably want a project oriented "how-to". I didn't like this one. And for what it's worth, the picture on the cover of the annoying clean-cut boy with the lipstick irritated me to no end as it is also the 1st page of every chapter. Puleese! Isn't Flash about graphics? Add a half star if cornyness doesn't bother you.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Better Flash Books I've read!
Review: I have the Visual Quick Start Guide and the Flash Bible. This book is much more comprehensive than the Visual Quick Start and has more useful information than the Flash Bible. I find myself using this book daily for questions I have on Flash. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a great reference and tutorial guide.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: I loved the online files for the actionscript tutorials. I was working on a project that involved drag and drop and it really helped me grasp the concept. Good for reference too. The author really knows her stuff!
Rating:
Summary: These Books reviews
Review: I went on to order more copies of this book for a course I teach in multimedia design in a state college in New Jersey. I noticed a few really bad reviews on this book and a couple of others that are really quite execellent books (Flash 5 Magic for example and Sams Flash Book). This book is excellent, as are the other two I mentioned.
Rating: 
Summary: How To Not Do Much With Flash 5
Review: It was very difficult to figure out how to do anything with this book. Open up any chapter and you'll find paragraph after paragraph of theories behind Flash and animation concepts. But if you want a step-by-step guide to learning flash, this book has none. It does not guide you through projects or even offer instruction on how to create simple sites. To find what you are looking for you need to read through endless garbage and explanations of general design concepts. And even then, you are not likely to read about the steps of creating a button. Aside from this, the website where the publisher promises "Free images Online" does not currently exist.
Rating:
Summary: BEST FLASH BOOK
Review: It's full step by step tutorials on complex Flash concepts. If you download the follow along files, you can reconstruct these tutorials step by step. It's kind of like taking a class. Gets to the point too. Easy to find quick answers. I bought it because it got a 5 star review in Publish mag. and there's a great editorual review from amazon workers. Hands down definitely the best Flash book I bought.
Rating: 
Summary: Avoid this book
Review: May be the worst book on Flash I've ever picked up. After reading this you could hardly expect to do anything with Flash but the basics rather than "everything" the text's title implies. A poor primer which can be quickly outgrown and never used again. Please note I was required to give it one star.
Rating:
Summary: How to do EVERYTHING ? (!!!)
Review: No my friends, this book is just blah, blah, blah, with just a few pictures. I ordered the book based on all the good reviews, but the book is AWFUL! There are better books on the market.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding coverage with great projects!
Review: Since I'm in the animation business, it's part of my job to read everything on the subject of Flash and other software products. This book is outstanding. It's truly a How To book and covers in specific detail all of those functions and features that you would be likely to use in your job or as a teacher. It is well written, precise, concise and substantiative. It makes you feel comfortable using Flash 5. The web resource guide is excellent and extremely helpful. I rate this book very highly and I recommend it to my departmental employees who are required to utilize Flash!
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