Product Description

Flash is one of the most engaging and innovative, and versatile technologies available—allowing the creation of pretty much anything from simple slideshows, animated banners and icons and cartoons, to Rich Internet Applications, Interactive videos, and dynamic user interfaces for web sites, kiosks, or DVDs. The possibilities are endless, except that now, it just got better. In 2007, Adobe released Flash CS3, which boasts a whole host of new features, including fully customizable workspace, full ActionScript 3.0 support, a PSD importer, a tween-to-code animation converter, and much more. And this book is all you'll need to learn Flash CS3 from the ground up, or learn about all these new features, if you already have previous Flash experience—Flash experts Tom Green and David Stiller take you step-by-step through all facets of Flash CS3, with the emphasis firmly on good design techniques that you use in your own projects. You can discover more about this book, download source code, and even view video tutorials at the book's companion site: www.foundationflashcs3.com.

• Learn Flash design from the ground up, or just get to grips with the new features, with a series of step by step tutorials.
• Provides an easy introduction to ActionScript 3.0 coding, but the focus is mainly kept on design.
• Learn from the expertswritten by renowned Flash designers Tom Green and David Stiller.

What youll learn

• The ins and outs of the Flash CS3 interface
• How to use all of Flash CS3's essential features, such as text, graphics, and animation
• How to use video and sound effectively in Flash
• The basics of ActionScript 3.0
• Building Flash user interfaces rapidly using components.
• How to populate a Flash movie with dynamic data such as XML.
• The Basics of creating Flash Lite applications (Flash for mobile devices)
• Using Cascading Style Sheets with Flash
• Optimizing and publishing your Flash movies

Who is this book for?

This book is for both beginners who want a solid grounding in Flash CS3, and designers with previous Flash experience, who want to get up to speed with the new features.

Summary of Contents

• Chapter 1: Learning the Flash CS3 Professional
• Chapter 2: Graphics in Flash CS3
• Chapter 3: Symbols and Libraries
• Chapter 4: ActionScript Basics
• Chapter 5: Audio in Flash CS3
• Chapter 6 Text in Flash CS3
• Chapter 7: Animation in Flash CS3
• Chapter 8: Video in Flash
• Chapter 9: Using the Flash UI Components to Build Interfaces
• Chapter 10: CSS and Flash
• Chapter 11: Dynamic Data (XML) and Flash
• Chapter 12: Going Mobile in Flash
• Chapter 13: Optimizing Flash Movies
• Chapter 14: Publishing Flash Movies

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25904 in Books
• Published on: 2007-07-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 600 pages

About the Author
Tom is currently Professor of Interactive Media in the School of Media Studies at Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in Toronto, Canada. He has written 4 previous books on Macromedia technologies, and many articles for numerous magazines and web sites, including the MX Developers Journal, Community MX, and Computer arts. Lastly, he has spoken at over 20 conferences internationally, including FITC, MX North, Digital Design World, TODCON, and SparkEurope.

David is a career multimedia programmer/designer whose portfolio includes NASA, Adobe, and major US automotive and boat manufacturers. He likes anaglyph 3D photography, finely crafted wooden game boards, Library of Congress field recordings, and Turkish coffee. David is self-taught and gets a kick out of sharing \"aha!\" moments with others through consultation, mentoring, and regular contributions to the Adobe Flash and ActionScript forums. He is a resident author at Community MX, a web development training site geared toward Adobe products. David lives in Virginia with his amazing wife, Dawn, and his beguiling daughter, Meridian.

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Customer Reviews

They know Flash, but not English
These guys obviously have a lot of technical knowledge, but when it comes to actual explanation of the concepts, they fail. Hierarchically speaking, their instruction is gibberish. They jump from vocabulary to examples to anecdotes without giving an overall coherent paradigm for understanding of most major concepts.

In other words, their instruction is valid when taken piecemeal, but does not equip the user to understand or implement correct systems of thinking for the program as a whole.

Furthermore, the speed of instruction and depth of explanation varies wildly from chapter to chapter.

Hidden sample lesson files makes it difficult to learn
Addendum: 2 people commented that there are sample files and included two different urls. I am downloading as I write this and will try them out. Still feel like I wasted time & energy to get to this point. The logic of not including the url in the book eludes me. I actually went to the publishers site and sent an email to "feedback", but it came back as undeliverable. So their web site links don't work. Makes me wonder about other possible errors, omissions or frustrations in the lessons.

This book might actually be helpful if it included the sample files. I've just spent 45 minutes, reading and rereading the intro, chapter beginnings, etc., hoping that the samples files could be downloaded someplace. Nothing.

It should mention/warn before you buy the book, that the samples are not available. No mention of online download, nor does the book include a disc. Just have to imagine what it's like to do the lessons.


Luckily, I've used Flash MX 2004 and can kind of understand the lessons, but it's a bit dizzying without actual files to work on. This is a very frustrating experience especially for a pricey book.

Very Well Done
I shake my head when I think about the amount of planning that has to go into a book of this caliber. They couldn't have done a better job keeping track of the ideas introduced in early chapters and building on them in succeeding chapters until they are well ingrained.

The tone is good -- occasional bits of levity but not so much that it becomes grating.

I came to this book with some familiarity with Photoshop and Illustrator, but none whatsoever with Flash. I'm nearly done with the book and am ready to take on the Flash projects I have in mind. I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning Flash.