Macromedia Flash 8 Bible (Bible (Wiley))

Having used this book for some time I have to say that I have found it useful, and have been moved to write this as a response to some of the other deeply unfair reviews of this book.
I think that it is intended as a reference work, not a tutorial, that is why it goes into detail about each item on the user interface, rather than immediately starting on a project. I have in fact found it extremely useful as a reference work for precisely this reason.
I do not understand the complaint about the moving man animation. I checked it out and it looks like a realistic animation of a man walking, which is what it is supposed to be, therefore it works 'correctly' in my opinion.
The person who complains about the CD not containing a trial version of the software is simply wrong, there is no claim anywhere that I have ever seen that it does so. What is does contain, as the book DOES claim, is sample FLA files, which illustrate the text of the book. Having said that, I don't think that the quality of these samples is particularly great. What you might hope for, and don't get, is some sample Flash applications which might have some real-world use.
However the book does have some real strengths, for example I found its detailed description of the various drawing tools and other aspects of Flash very useful, and taught me quite a few things I didn't know, even though I had used Flash for some time before buying the book. Also the introduction to Actionscript is useful too.
I think that the point to recognise is that this is useful as a reference work, not so much as an introduction to Flash

Vehement defence of these books!!! (1/1 people found this helpful)

I must jump to the defense of these books based on what I've read from other users. In my opinion, they are well laid out and offer use as both walk-through introductions and "skip-in-and-out" references.

I don't want to labour the point but these books have taken my Flash work to a whole new level and I have made huge steps forward in both my personal and professional development.

A site that I'm just finishing which has been based almost entirely on what these books have taught me is www.bdjfl.com

Look at this site and try telling me these books aren't worth 40 quid!

very disappointed (3/5 people found this helpful)

Very badly layed out. The cd which is stated to have a trial version of the software doesn't, it has an outdated link to the macromedia website.

The guide to using Flash (2/2 people found this helpful)

I found this book extremely useful in both providing me with a guide to how things are done in Flash and the historical context of how things were done. This makes this an exceptionally useful book for both newcomers to Flash and those who have delved into Flash in the past, especially those with a non-programming background. Flash is such a diverse tool these days that it can be used in many ways. The video section in this book was worth the cover price in itself especially as Flash is now the format of choice for online video. I thoroughly recommend this book.

Useless book, neither a bible nor a beginner's help (26/29 people found this helpful)

What a disappointment this book is. It's far from being a bible because the layout of the book is seemingly completely random. It also is completely wrong about how realistic animation is achieved - I used to be a games programmer.

As a long-time C++ programmer, I needed both a reference and a learning guide. What this book, and its companion, equally useless Actionscript Bible, does is to go through all aspects of Macromedia Flash 8 in detail, by going through every little item available on the interface. We're literally half way through the book before we get to a section called "Building your first project"! This is exactly the wrong approach, the last thing you need to do is to learn every detail about something before you've started the hands-on part of learning. And in terms of being a "bible", which I take to mean a reference guide, what is needed is a strongly indexed set of sections about movie clips, the timeline, actionscript, the interfaces, web pages etc, and not just a random twaddle.

The way animation of a moving man is described is that of drawing the frames as though moving on the spot, and then applying just the right amount of movement on certain frames. This is wrong. The correct way of perfect movement is to draw a set of frames where the man moves through space within the area being drawn without any adjustment to the X or Y. Then, on the very last frame, where the next frame would be identical to the first, you add the pixel difference to the X and Y, before reverting back to the first frame once again. That's how it's done properly, and it is frankly astonishing that this so-called bible tells the reader the wrong way.

For me that's £40 badly spent.

Robert Reinhardt, Snow Dowd

Reader Reviews:

A useful guide to Flash 8 (0/0 people found this helpful)

Vehement defence of these books!!! (1/1 people found this helpful)

very disappointed (3/5 people found this helpful)

The guide to using Flash (2/2 people found this helpful)

Useless book, neither a bible nor a beginner's help (26/29 people found this helpful)

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