Macromedia Flash(tm) 5 Developer's Guide

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Exploration of More Advanced Flash Features
Review: I am giving this book a five star review because it has some interesting content, and the author gives the material an original spin. The chapters on Flash 3D, XML, and Swift-Generator were very helpful and dare I say, sometimes insightful. In contrast, I wasn't that excited about the chapters on PHP and MySQL, but by the end, they proved interesting. My biggest problem with the book is its overall lack of organization, and personally, many of the chapters would have been helped by more examples. Bottom line - this is not a cover-to-cover read, but if you want interesting content on some of Flash 5's more advanced features, I would pick it up.

Rating:
Summary: Flash Developer's Guide very helpful
Review: I vacillate between 4 and 5 stars...but it's truly a great book. The technical descriptions of various tools of Flash 5 are quite good. Mr. Woods handled the more complex ActionScripts very well, in ways that I could relate to what he was attempting to do...which was show the incredible versatility of the ActionScripts and explain ways I could utilize the programming. I learned (finally, still with some difficulty) to use the Bezier pen, thanks to Mr. Woods' enthusiastic endorsement, and was able to grasp many of the aspects of Flash that had been somewhat weak for me before. I have read many books on Flash 5 and cartooning, and definitely would recommend this book for a good underpinning of the basics as well as assistance with expert Flash development. Keep up the great work, Mr. Woods.