Macromedia Flash MX: Training from the Source

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money
Review: I thought this would be a great way to learn Flash, but I would've been better off sticking to tutorials and help files. This book is full of inconsistencies and misinformation. Following the steps in the book DOES NOT produce the outcome described. There are blatant discrepancies between the instructions and descriptions. They must've skipped the editing process on this one entirely.
The Dreamweaver 4-training from the source book was pretty good, so I expected better from this one.

Rating:
Summary: $$$ for this? I don't think so.
Review: I understand tutorials for recent software releases may have their fair share of typos, but the editors at Peachpit were asleep at the wheel on this one. Not only is this book filled with typos, I found this to be more of a brain dump than a professional, organized tutorial. We are asked to read pages and pages of the most mundane concepts and wordy explanations, and then are left out in the cold when it gets down and dirty -- key steps and definitions are just missed entirely. The first animation lessons are totally inconsistent and vague, and then the author goes so far to say "by now you're an expert!" Right. I am very disappointed in my first Macromedia-sanctioned tutorial, I expected better. Their products aren't very intuitive, I don't know why their tutorial publications would be.

Rating:
Summary: overview of mx
Review: I usually enjoy From the Source books, but this one gave me a "thrown together at the last minute" feel. The book uses a zoo site which lacks "umf". It just doesn't sizzle at all. Chissy attempts to give an overview and you just feel like you are reading another technical manual. The treatment of actionscript is... well abrupt. She covers functions, variables, loops, syntax and other important issues in less than 4 pages.
Your head will definitely spin on that one.
There are some good points in terms of resources and an overview of Flash features, but this text was worse in its treatment of Flash as a tutorial. Further it is has several errors and inconsistencies in the content. Again, you feel someone was in a hurry to put this together and missed putting together something you can enjoy learning from.

Rating:
Summary: Great book for beginners!
Review: I was just getting started with Flash when I was assigned this book in a class. It is not a reference, as the back cover might suggest, but it is a very useful tool for learning Flash. I like the step by step approach. Some of the explanations are very long, but after getting a better feel for the program, I found that I could just skip the explanations and follow the steps. If I ever got confused or lost, or wanted to get some more background on what I was doing, I just read the explanation. The explanations seem to be written with a beginner in mind, and I do not think I would recommend this book for someone who already knows a lot of Flash. Everything I made from the book worked perfectly, though I did notice a few discrepancies between some of the pictures and the actual program. The discrepancies were not show-stoppers, and I had no trouble figuring out what the author was trying to convey, even though the program looked a little different from the pictures. I liked that I was able to create a complete web site using this book. I have picked up a few more advanced Flash books since reading this one, and I feel that knowing the basics because of this book has helped me find my way in those books. If you already know Flash pretty well, this book is probably not for you, but if you are a beginner like me, this book is the way to go!

Rating:
Summary: It's good for learning the basics, but that's it
Review: I'm currently covering the book, the presentation of the material is straightforward, the author gets you up and running with a project as early as chapter 2 - granted that the degree of difficulty varies chapter to chapter.

Again, don't expect anything more than a "tour" of Flash, more in depth books are available. The reason I started with this book is to gain familiarity with the tools of Flash, get working on a quick project, and then advance to other books/training sources.

Overall, it's not 5 worthy, but I'll give it a 4 since it does a good job of giving me the upper-level details of FlashMX and ActionScript.

Rating:
Summary: It's good for learning the basics, but that's it
Review: I'm currently covering the book, the presentation of the material is straightforward, the author gets you up and running with a project as early as chapter 2 - granted that the degree of difficulty varies chapter to chapter.

Again, don't expect anything more than a "tour" of Flash, more in depth books are available. The reason I started with this book is to gain familiarity with the tools of Flash, get working on a quick project, and then advance to other books/training sources.

Overall, it's not 5 worthy, but I'll give it a 4 since it does a good job of giving me the upper-level details of FlashMX and ActionScript.

Rating:
Summary: You probably want to look elsewhere.
Review: I'm going to try to write the most balanced and fair review I can. Let me begin by writing about what the author got right.

First of all, this was probably a VERY difficult book to write. As an author myself, I have to sympathize. Flash concepts are difficult (because they're so intricate), the Flash interface is very difficult (because it's so intricate) and putting all the pieces of a movie together is difficult (because they're so intricate). This would be a very difficult book to write.

Second of all, the author was VERY good about explaining how to perform each step, even after she explained it a million times. For instance, the flash interface is so difficult that you may forget how to center a a shape. Everytime she asks you to center a shape, she tells you, again and again, how to do it. It must be very frustrating for an author to explain things ad nausem like that. But for a topic like flash for beginners, it's necessary.

The illustrations are great.

So that's what the author got right. Now I'll go into what she got wrong. I'll give you the punchline right now, though. The bad outweighs the good. By a lot, considering the amount of time it takes to go through the book.

I fully agree with deltatangou's review. The book is highly non-linear. It jumps from this to that, and can be accused of being very disorganized. She's meticulous in detail, but this kind of "from A to H and then from B to W" type of learning is not suitable for some kinds of people.

I suspect that this book might be good for people who have solid memories and like to learn things "by the seat of their pants". Many artists I know are like this.

However, if you're a methodical learner, and use knowledge to build on previously learned knowledge, this book will make you dizzy. You'll wonder "what the heck did I learn two chapters ago". You'll feel like you did a bunch of examples but didn't learn much.

The book is "goal oriented", and takes a top to bottom approach. The final goal is some flash project about a virtual zoo. This only aggravates the problem. Again, top to bottom learning is great for "seat of the pants" learning. You learn what you need to know, when you need to know it. Personally, I don't learn this way, but perhaps you do. I find it very difficult to see the trees through the forest with this book.

The only other flash book I've seen (and I've only thumbed through it) is the "Flash in 24 hours" book. From my percursory glance, it looks to be more suitable for me: it looks like it takes a bottom up approch.

Anyway, I'm giving this book one star, with the provisio that perhaps there are people who like to learn this way.

Rating:
Summary: You probably want to look elsewhere.
Review: I'm going to try to write the most balanced and fair review I can. Let me begin by writing about what the author got right.

First of all, this was probably a VERY difficult book to write. As an author myself, I have to sympathize. Flash concepts are difficult (because they're so intricate), the Flash interface is very difficult (because it's so intricate) and putting all the pieces of a movie together is difficult (because they're so intricate). This would be a very difficult book to write.

Second of all, the author was VERY good about explaining how to perform each step, even after she explained it a million times. For instance, the flash interface is so difficult that you may forget how to center a a shape. Everytime she asks you to center a shape, she tells you, again and again, how to do it. It must be very frustrating for an author to explain things ad nausem like that. But for a topic like flash for beginners, it's necessary.

The illustrations are great.

So that's what the author got right. Now I'll go into what she got wrong. I'll give you the punchline right now, though. The bad outweighs the good. By a lot, considering the amount of time it takes to go through the book.

I fully agree with deltatangou's review. The book is highly non-linear. It jumps from this to that, and can be accused of being very disorganized. She's meticulous in detail, but this kind of "from A to H and then from B to W" type of learning is not suitable for some kinds of people.

I suspect that this book might be good for people who have solid memories and like to learn things "by the seat of their pants". Many artists I know are like this.

However, if you're a methodical learner, and use knowledge to build on previously learned knowledge, this book will make you dizzy. You'll wonder "what the heck did I learn two chapters ago". You'll feel like you did a bunch of examples but didn't learn much.

The book is "goal oriented", and takes a top to bottom approach. The final goal is some flash project about a virtual zoo. This only aggravates the problem. Again, top to bottom learning is great for "seat of the pants" learning. You learn what you need to know, when you need to know it. Personally, I don't learn this way, but perhaps you do. I find it very difficult to see the trees through the forest with this book.

The only other flash book I've seen (and I've only thumbed through it) is the "Flash in 24 hours" book. From my percursory glance, it looks to be more suitable for me: it looks like it takes a bottom up approch.

Anyway, I'm giving this book one star, with the provisio that perhaps there are people who like to learn this way.

Rating:
Summary: A little too basic for my taste.
Review: I've had this book for three days now. This book really does take you by the hand and walk you through using the tools and building a very simple; amateur website with flash mx. I don't feel like I'm getting anything from this book. The tutorials included with the flash mx program do just fine except for building a website. This book falls very short as far as the feeling of accomplishment in building a website with impressive animations etc....; that's what flash is supposed to about; FLASH not FLUSH. There are too many books out for flash mx that try too hard to familiarize you with the mx environment and do little to teach you on how to create those cutting edge animations that we are so accustomed to seeing these days. One chapter on tools and basics would be fine (both in one chapter) the rest should get you wet with animating (today's standards) and action scripting; none of the books today do a good job of this. You either have to be an action script master or a baby taking it's first steps.
Pass on this one; Use flash itself and the tutorials then try to get a grasp for action scripting with one of the other books. I haven't found one yet.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest Flash MX Book Ever!
Review: Imagine my surprise as I mull the purchase of my first Flash Book. I wanted to get the information in an easy-to-read format, with a step by step guide on How To navigate the Flash environment.

Looking at over 20 books, I came across Chrissy Rey's "Macromedia Flash MX: Training from the Source" Much to my surprise and glee, I saw every personal requirement in a tutorial manual fulfilled. I quickly obtained a copy and weeks later, I still rave about the book to my colleagues and subordinates.

This book is wonderful and I wish Ms. Rey all the success that life has to offer. Thankyou for a well thought out book!