Macromedia Flash MX: A Beginner's Guide

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book for Just Starting with Flash MX
Review: I knew a few basics from the files that come with flash, and was able to do very few basic things. I read through this book, and I now have a solid background in all the flash basics. I like the layout too. Great book, excellent for beginners.

Rating:
Summary: Macromedia Flash MX - good beginners guide
Review: I knew a few basics from the files that come with flash, and was able to do very few basic things. I read through this book, and I now have a solid background in all the flash basics. I like the layout too. Great book, excellent for beginners.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent primer
Review: I was recently tasked with creating an online product tour for our company. I have a lot of HTML and CSS experience but I wanted to do something a bit fancier, and after talking to some people I decided to check out Flash. So far "Flash MX Beginners Guide" seems like a great primer to this software, and it should be a good reference book as I continue to work. The author doesn't make a lot of assumptions about me so I'm not always wondering what a term means. Very well written. If you're looking for a good first book on Flash, I recommend this one.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book for Just Starting with Flash MX
Review: I was surprised at how easy it was to start understanding and using Flash with this book. It is organized very well, the language is concise and clear, and one can follow all the examples without having to go over the author's instructions again and again as with so many other books of this kind. In that sense, this book is a confidence builder and should be read by all who are starting with Flash.

Rating:
Summary: Condescending, Useless Format
Review: There's nothing worse when you're relying on a book such as this to learn a software program and you have to contend with the author talking down at you. It seems he gives the reader almost no credit for knowing anything about a user interface, or a graphics program. Most first time Flash users have a good amount of experience with both.
This book is handicapped by its overly cute instructional design.
For example, the aughor disguises very important product information as "Hints". He uses silly sections called "1-minute drill" to repeat points he made earlier in the text.
He wastes alot of ink and space with tedious tool-by-tool descriptions without connecting them to any purpose.
Overall, this book is more annoying than it is useful.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect Introduction for Beginner's
Review: This is an excellent book. I am a new user, but I have wanted to learn about Flash for a long time. With this book, I was up and running in a couple of hours. I understand all of the basic concepts, and I am learning about ActionScript. The author is really clear, no confusing explanations.