Rating: 
Summary: Awesome Learning Tool & Reference
Review: I bought this book knowing nothing about Director, but having to learn the program for a class. In the class that I took, we had to purchase Director 7 Authorized, and work the tutorials. I went through both books, and let me tell you - This book is so much better than Authorized!Demystified starts at the very beginning, explaining the interface of Director and menus. Then, it moves into using Director, and explains everything in detail. Once you become familiar with Director, Demystified tackles Lingo, and the cool things you can do with it. Lingo is not that hard to program in, and once I went through Demystified, I could easily program everything I did in Lingo. As I work through Director projects, I am constantly referencing this book for terminology, functions, and other information. It more than pays for itself as a reference volume, as well as teaching you Director and Lingo. If you want to learn Director and Lingo, this is definitely the book to get.
Rating: 
Summary: It does provide me with a solid foundation in Director.
Review: I first bought Director 7 and Lingo Authorized with no background in Director. I only know Flash. I find it useful since the approach is a step by step tutorial. However after I finished all the exercises, I still have lots of unanswered questions. For example, how to use the Shockwave Multiusers server, and how to make more complex design with lingo, etc. I then read the official manuals, documentations and Director 7 Demystified. They do answer some of my questions. I find Director 7 Demystified can give me a more solid foundation of Director. It explains "why", not just tell you do this and do that. It also covers how to use the simple drawing function in the application. At the end of the book, there is a bigger section on lingo script. I think Director 7 and Lingo Authorized is good for beginners who likes step by step tutorials. However for those who want to go deeper into it as well as lingo, you ought to read Director 7 Demystified too. Btw, Macromedia is famous for its support and learning site. The official documentation is also a very good source to learn, esp. their manual on the shockwave multiusers server. I cannot find much information about this server in most Director books.
Rating:
Summary: It does provide me with a solid foundation in Director.
Review: I first bought Director 7 and Lingo Authorized with no background in Director. I only know Flash. I find it useful since the approach is a step by step tutorial. However after I finished all the exercises, I still have lots of unanswered questions. For example, how to use the Shockwave Multiusers server, and how to make more complex design with lingo, etc. I then read the official manuals, documentations and Director 7 Demystified. They do answer some of my questions. I find Director 7 Demystified can give me a more solid foundation of Director. It explains "why", not just tell you do this and do that. It also covers how to use the simple drawing function in the application. At the end of the book, there is a bigger section on lingo script. I think Director 7 and Lingo Authorized is good for beginners who likes step by step tutorials. However for those who want to go deeper into it as well as lingo, you ought to read Director 7 Demystified too. Btw, Macromedia is famous for its support and learning site. The official documentation is also a very good source to learn, esp. their manual on the shockwave multiusers server. I cannot find much information about this server in most Director books.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best book out there (especially for Lingo & OOP)
Review: I have both this book and the Director 7 and Lingo Bible. Thelatter is definitely a much better book. It is not as large in size asDemystified is but it has more real-world examples and the author's style of writing is clearer and easier to follow. I bought Demystified first and was frustrated with the "academic" nature of it's examples. It's as if it was written by a tenured professor. The Director 7 and Lingo Bible, on the other hand, feels and reads like it was written by an industry insider with many multimedia projects under his belt. I'm not going to go in to too much detail on this in here as I just got through writing a review for the Bible and you can read that if you're interested in finding out why I prefer that book to Demystified.
Rating:
Summary: If you own only one brick...
Review: I've required this book in a course on Director for a few semesters. It's perfect for getting what you want from the program because its tutorials are transient and mostly self-contained. The excellent Lingo dictionary contains code examples for every part of the language. The book is _really_ bulky, and as I need less from the introductory chapters, it seems all the more bricklike. Most times I find myself reaching for the comparatively lean Lingo in a Nutshell. The true measure of a book is its index, and D7D's is good. Because it contains zillions of entries (including all of Lingo), it takes a few tries to pinpoint information. Programmers will miss O'Reilly's indexes, which are nearly always easier to use. Students have mixed reports on the general usefulness of D7D; some prefer Persidsky's Visual QuickStart Guide for a fast introduction. That book is non-linear enough to replace D7D as a versatile learning tool, but like other VQS Guides, it's soon gathering dust. This is the book if you only have one, particularly if you're neither Luddite nor code wonk. It will surely outlive its version of Director.
Rating:
Summary: Great way to learn
Review: This is one of the best written computer books I've ever used. It's on-line tutorial style makes it very easy to quickly come up to speed on Director.
Rating:
Summary: Great way to learn
Review: This is one of the best written computer books I've ever used. It's on-line tutorial style makes it very easy to quickly come up to speed on Director.
Rating:
Summary: Quite useful; not as good as first volume
Review: This sequel covers a range of topics that Gross's first book did not. But unfortunately, it is not as well written as the first volume (which I think is superbly written). The writing is not as clear; the examples can be a bit murky; and the book does feel a little "miscellaneous" at times. However, since Director documentation is sparse, this book may well prove vital to your needs. I used it in particular for parent/child object coding.
Rating:
Summary: from zero to movies in days!
Review: whether you are still confused where that particular sub-menu/pop-up palette/toolbar resides( and director has a zillion of 'em)or you need to figure out how to construct a complex sequence of actions, this book is clear, clean, and often, wryly amusing. I haven't had to open the cd-rom yet,as the text/illustrations are so step-by-step concise that even a raw beginner like me can create the tutorial exercises from scratch, without using the accompanying files. just flipping through the incredibly well-organized appenixes has taught me more about lingo that I would have imagined in such a short time, from fully using all the amazing cut & paste features in Director7, to constructing my own code. this book is well worth the backache of lugging around it's enclyclopedic size, even on the NYC subways!
Rating: 
Summary: better books than this
Review: While this might get you started if you've never used director before, it won't get you much further than learning where the buttons are. I was surprised that a manual so think in pages could have so little information. Beware: this company has released and Director 8 version of this sam book but it still contains the same information. If you really want to know anything valuable about Lingo or interactive elements I recommend Using Director 8 by Que publishing.
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