Flash MX HOT (Hands on Training)
12 December 2003 Justin Williams Skip to comments
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Justin Williams gives you an inside look at how this book can teach you the basics of understanding and learning Macromedia Flash. It has an emphasis on examples and lessons.
Flash has been around on the web for what seems like forever now. What was once used for sparingly has blown up across the Internet. You can see Flash anywhere from cool movie websites, interactive games, and even annoying web advertisements.
I picked up this book because I had a desire to learn something new. My background is more in the technical side of computing: programming, networking, etc. so a book on Flash is a totally different end of the spectrum for me.
From lynda.com:
This series of books, developed by Lynda Weinman, encourages readers to learn by doing. It's ideal for those who want to learn a new tool but learn best from a hands-on approach....The premise behind the Hands-On Training series is that if you follow the exercises, you will learn the program. Because these books are not part of a vendor-based press (Adobe Press, Macromedia Press, Microsoft Press), they offer objective insight into the program's weaknesses and strengths, as well as solutions to common problems.
Since I am a very hands on person, this book intrigued me. I have always been more of a hands on learner when it comes to class work and the real world applications this book provided seemed very useful.
The book is divided into eighteen chapters, with each building upon the knowledge of the last. Weil starts the reader out with the basics of defining the Flash interface, explaining terminoligy used throughout the book, and setting up your own keyboard shortcuts. After that is out of the way, the reader will jump right into his first lesson.
The books CD includes exercise files for each chapter that are a good foundation to start from. Each chapter covers a certain topic (drawing, animation, sound, movies, etc) and the exercises in each chapter give you a good starting point for each topic. The exercises center around a snowboarding theme, which is fun and interesting to work with.
Throughout each exercise, We'll will stop and try to explain why we are doing things a certain way. She also makes a point to explain that there are other ways to accomplish the same thing and the advantages/drawbacks of each. These little asides are usually put in a panel called a NOTE.
Also included on the CD are quicktime movies that help reinforce some of the more difficult concepts covered in the books. I didn't really find these that useful, but I wasn't struggling to grasp the concepts I was learning either. I imagine these would be nice for an auditory or visual learner.
The one thing I enjoyed the most about this book is that from the very beginning I was learning the keyboard shortcuts. I am a keyboard junky, so learning these productivity improving commands was very useful. The author would usually give you the command for completing a task and then mention in passing what the keyboard command was. These keyboard commands are pushed throughout the entire book. Anytime I was supposed to put in a new frame, I was reminded that the keyboard shorcut was F5 or to open the library it was F11.
The area I thought was lacking was in the range of Actionscripting. I don't think the chapter on it covered nearly enough of such a broad topic. I got the basics of how to start and stop clips and a few other things, but there was so much more I would have liked to learn about. I do realize that there are entire books dedicated to the topic, however, so I can't really fault the book for it that much. Actionscripting is a very powerful tool in Flash. Without it, I don't think we would see nearly as many Flash-driven sites.
The final chapters of the book gave an overview of exporting the movie for publishing, creating a preloader, and combining all of the knowledge gained from the previous chapters. Also covered was integrating Flash with other Macromedia products such as Dreamweaver and Fireworks. This is especially useful for someone that has the entire MX Studio. The knowledge I learned in that chapter is time saving. For example, I can access Flash content directly from Dreamweaver without having to find the file in my Finder.
The only thing I wish this book would have given me is artistic ability. While I have a solid grasp of how to use Flash now, when I try to create my own projects with it, they seem unartistic and lacking creativity. I couldn't draw my way out of a paper box, and apparently I can't Flash my way out either. I can see myself using the knowledge I gained from this book at work though. When the artists are messing with Flash and have a question, I think I would be able to jump right in there and offer a lot more assistance than I could before I read Flash MX HOT.
Would I recommend the book to someone? Absolutely. I am very happy with my selection because I not only learned how to use a new tool, but I also learned how to apply it in a real world setting thanks to the hands on exercises provided. I give it four out of 5 Zealots. :)
Book Details
Title:Flash MX: HOT (Hands On Training)
Author: Kymberlee Weil
Date Published: 2003
ISBN: 0201731347
Buy it Online: Amazon
Justin Williams is founder and chief author for MacZealots. He switched to the Mac almost five years ago hasn't looked back since. When not blogging or coding, you can find him watching copious amounts of TV. Justin can be reached at
Reader Comments (1)
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#1) On December 30, 2003 6:04 PM
I’ve also just started learning Flash. Keep in mind that when you learn ActionScript, there are some significant syntax differences between Flash MX (wyich still uses ActionScript 1) and Flash MX 2004 (ActionScript 2), especially in the area of object-oriented programming.