ISBN: 0596006454
List Price: $24.95
Amazon Price: $16.47
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Avg Cusomer Rating: 4
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Summary: Great book!
There are lots of cool effects in this book. It will be a bit overwhelming due to the extent of the actionscript but these effets can be copied and added to your website or movie. I am going to keep the book and use it again and again.
Summary: 100 of the most needed tricks for creative Flash works
Flash MX 2004 creative work depends -in most of it- on tricks and mind digging. However, like other members in the Hack family, Sham Bhangal's book (Flash Hack) has dug the minds and came up with 100 of the most interesting Flash tricks that are distinguished in a very smart way depending on their type.
In this book, found a group of the tips and tricks for beginner and professional designers and developers. Beginner designers and developers can develop their ability to create their own tricks through reading this book thoroughly, as beside describing his thoughts within each trick topic, Sham has attached at the end of each trick a Final Thoughts part as a conclusion to ensure that the reader has completely grasped his idea.
Summary: Very Worthwhile!
This is a member of the Hacks series published by O'Reilly, a series
of books noted for their ability to answer the perennial "gee, I wish
I could..." problem. (though for most people this would be phrased a
good deal less politely. At least it was for me when I was learning Flash)
This book is no exception. I have been
using Flash myself since about version 4 and while I don't spend all
my time with it, I have developed a talent for finding hidden features
and methods in a variety of platforms and programs, and still I was
impressed by a number of the techniques outlined in this book. There
are some which I have, as yet, not really found a use for, but there
are a few that have answered some of the lingering questions about
things that I have always found very silly about Flash.
The book covers Flash MX 2004, though many of the features are not
limited to that version, and where they are the author has made this
very clear, in fact the author has kindly translated some of the code
examples to earlier versions of actionscript where necessary and/or
possible, (well, flash 6 anyway.) The organization of the book is
also a point in its favor as a reference work for the "alternatively
trained" professional. Where many manuals and instruction books are
arranged by tool, this book is organized by result. This is a boon to
those of us who, having a problem with (for example,) sound, will go
through the manual for all the elements to do with sound functions,
only to find that the bit that we needed is covered under UI. There
are also workflow tips, neat tricks, performance enhancers, Flash bug
workarounds, undocumented features, and even tips about how to prevent
opportunistic theft of your flash content.
There is not room to cover all of the 100 hacks available to you, and
even the range of the chapters is quite extensive. Nor does it make
much sense to cover all of it in a linear way, as this is probably not
how you will read this either. When I first picked up the book, I
went down the table of contents and spent the next couple of minutes
rifling back and forth through the book going "Aha!" and "ohhh..."
This of course makes covering the book in a general way something of a
headache. For me, some of the most interesting tips were those
devoted to the animation part of the workflow. Despite being formally
trained as an animator, my introduction to Flash was primarily from
the coding direction. As a result, Hack #74, External Script Editors
was of only passing interest to me as I stopped using the internal
script editor long ago. Hack #62, Right and Middle Mouse Buttons,
well, I use a Macintosh, and tend to regard other mouse buttons with
some suspicion (or at least scorn.)
All of Chapter 9, Performance and Optimization, however, should be
required reading for all Flash developers. Most of us will know some
fraction of the tips here, but will benefit immeasurably from having
read the other one or two that we did not previously know, or pay
attention to.
Chapter 5 is probably best approached in the spirit of "that's pretty
neat, but..." as there is little reason to include a 3D Engine in a
flash movie other than to be able to say that you could do it. The
basic physics parts, however, can lend a bit of extra 'oomph' to an
interface.
Amongst the Hacks in chapter 3, there are several related bits about
how to make repeating tiles that can be programatically spread (and varied)
across a field. Interestingly, Hack 18 contains nothing about Flash at all,
and is simply a breakdown of the method of making repeated tiles
easily. I don't know why, but I find that kind of digression
refreshing.
Some of the hacks are improvements or refinements of earlier hacks.
One of the animation hacks outlines the method of using overlapping
loops of sequences that have a prime number of frames to simulate non
repeating motion, that the author incidentally describes as being one of his first
attempts at this sort of thing. This hack is immediately followed by
a method describing how to get the "Matrix" effect of falling numbers
by using single frame movie clips and a script.
All in all, this is a very good book to have as a reference. One good
read through and you will say to yourself at least a couple of times,
"Why have I not been doing it that way all along?" Later on you will
find yourself remembering that "other" trick and go back to the book
and look again. Since first reading it I have convinced my company to
purchase it as an office reference, and I would recommend it to anyone
else, both the beginner, (to save yourself the trouble,) and the pro (ditto)
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