Flash software is an advanced authoring environment that is aimed at creating multimedia interactive content for Web sites. Since its introduction in 1996, its capabilities have grown a lot. We can observe its development through particular versions of Macromedia Flash (2 to 9), to Adobe Flash CS3 in 2007. Green and Stiller researched in detail the possibilities of Flash CS3, and made this research available through this book.
The authors put a lot of effort into making the reading of the book fun; it is full of exercises and examples that are often written in a funny context with funny pictures. Flash, as a multimedia authoring environment, is a nice topic for giving attractive and interesting examples. The authors employ this fact to a great extent. Even though the book contains a lot of pictures, they are black and white. The authors provide a lot of explanations throughout the book, not only in the text but also in the figures themselves.
This practical guide to Flash CS3 fundamentals is based on the learning-by-doing paradigm. It is divided into 14 chapters. As it is a kind of tutorial, each chapter starts with a summing-up paragraph about what was learned before, followed by a list of topics covered in the current chapter. The files used for exercises in the current chapter are also listed. All files accompanying the book can be downloaded as a single archive for the whole book or individually for each chapter from the publisher’s site (http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=9781590598610). Except for a few small exercises given throughout the book, each chapter contains one or more opportunities for mini projects, under the title “Your Turn.” Finally, at the end of each chapter, the reader will find the “What You’ve Learned” section.
The book starts by dropping the reader right into the application by creating a small Flash movie. This way, Green and Stiller familiarize the reader with the Flash workspace and the fundamentals of using Flash Professional CS3 software. Chapter 2 introduces graphic tools. In chapter 3, the reader finds an introduction to symbols and libraries that are used throughout the Flash environment.
Based on fundamentals presented in the first three chapters, the rest of the book presents ActionScript 3.0 basics (for experienced users, I recommend selecting a book solely on ActionScript), audio, text, animation, video, and other topics such as user-interface components: styling a Flash movie using cascading style sheets (CSS), adding dynamic data (Extensible Markup Language (XML)) to the movie, or creating interactive presentations on mobile devices. The last two chapters focus on optimizing and publishing Flash movies.
Green and Stiller also point out changes in the CS3 version, but the changes are interweaved in the text of the book and, therefore, somewhat hidden; for existing Flash users, it may be rather difficult to get a quick overview of new features. On the other hand, the book is really well written and has a practical layout, so even existing Flash users will benefit by discovering old unknown Flash features; alternately, they can just read particular chapters, as they are self contained. Moreover, there is plenty of ActionScript 3.0 code to study, for designers who used ActionScript 2.0 previously.
This book gives the reader the fundamentals of Flash CS3. The material presented is good, particularly for beginners. Thanks to a good writing style and the humorous approach, the book will certainly attract young designers. My son, who is a student of architecture and is currently interested in the design of almost everything, found the book interesting. The reader should be prepared for really detailed explanations that are very time consuming,but will enable getting advanced knowledge of Flash CS3 by using just this book and the computer for exercises. I recommend this book as one of the best introductions to the Flash CS3 software.
