Complete Idiot's Guide to Macromedia Flash 5 - Softcover

Karlins, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0789724421 ISBN 13: 9780789724427

Publisher: Alpha, 2000

Synopsis

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Macromedia Flash 5 teaches you the basics of using Flash 5 to create stimulating and action-packed Web pages. Whether you're a novice or more experienced user, this step-by-step, light-hearted approach will ease you into the world of Flash-y Web-page-building--with all the bells and whistles of streaming audio and video.

About this title

Review

The audience for the "idiot" and "dummy" schools of instruction books is pretty well defined--either you like them or you don't. As with others of this fashion, the Complete Idiot's Guide to Macromedia Flash 5 uses "bite-size chunks" to teach, instead of a longer tutorial style or a concise step-by-step. Promising that readers "learn Flash in a fun, non-technobabble way," the author peppers minilessons with copious amounts of puns and jokes, cartoon-style illustrations, and a familiar, friendly tone. He walks you through all of the basic features to create simple Flash movies--even ones that employ basic ActionScripting.

However, the user-friendly logic of Flash 5's panels goes a long way in making this ease of learning possible--most readers can figure out each step on their own. On the other hand, this book can serve as the sugar to help the medicine go down: readers reaching for a book that's aimed even jokingly at idiots probably need some friendly help when staring at the Flash interface. If you fall into this category, this book might help you overcome your fears and finally get you started.

Warning: There are quite a few errors in the book--mistakes in the text, as well as incorrect screen shots; but, on the bright side (if there is a "bright side" to any mistake), the slow, "idiot" pacing pretty much guarantees that readers will be aware of the errors. For example, in a section on adding sound to buttons--a section that clearly announces more than once that the sound in the demonstration will be added to the down state (as they often are)--the final step tells readers to drag the sound from the library to the Up frame. Perhaps readers could look upon errors such as this as "pop quizzes." --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered:
Introduction to Flash 5, including basic instruction in:

• Creating art.
• Working with layers.
• Working with symbols.
• Creating buttons.
• Simple interactivity.
• Creating forms.
• Simple ActionScripting.
• Tweening.
• Masking.
• Publishing.

From the Author

Flash is a powerful, fun, essential element of Web design. But it's not intuitive. This book incorporates the approach I've used to teach hundreds of graphic illustrators and web designers how to use Flash.

Edition details

• Publisher: Alpha
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0789724421
• ISBN 13: 9780789724427
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 350