As any Flash developer worth his or her salt knows, you’re not tapping all of the program’s power unless you’re taking advantage of its scripting language. Not to worry: With Flash 8’s improved scripting language (which includes a visual interface!) and this project-based guide you don’t have to be a master programmer to do so. In these pages authors Jobe Makar and Danny Patterson, use hands-on lessons and simple, step-by-step instructions to translate real-life activities into scripts, in the process demonstrating that scripting is something you already instinctively know how to do. To that end, the authors have provided methodologies and techniques for building nearly 40 real-life Flash 8 ActionScript projects, including sample games, wireless applications, Web sites, and more—all of which will help you work faster and more efficiently. The companion CD contains all of the project files and images you’ll need to complete the book’s lessons.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 11 Ratings

Gonna have to agree, save your money - 2008-05-29
Reviewer Rating:
Bought this book because i really hate using the built in help features of any program and really wanted to learn this, but i am 30 pages in and its already full of errors. The projects that are supposedly finished on the cd are wrong and there is no on-line site for this book so i can't find any type of updates at all. If you really need/want this book buy it used because the authors obviously don't need the $$ since they didn't proofread their own work.

Should re-call this worthless book! - 2008-03-07
Reviewer Rating:
As other reviewers have stated, the exercises in this book DO NOT WORK!!!

You'll be ready to pull your hair out by the second chapter!
I followed the direction over and over and over again, thinking I was doing something wrong. It wasn't me! The book is WRONG!

This is a book teaching you how to learn a -ing programming language and it's like nobody actually read it after they wrote it! How is it possible that Macromedia and Peachpit let this book be published!??

If this is what "Training from the Source" means, then I'll learn elsewhere.
C'mon people! Test your product before you try to sell it to the public for 45 bucks!!!!

If I could ratre this book a "-1" stars I would. - 2007-05-14
Reviewer Rating:
I knew something was wrong with this book when I was only on pg 14. It showed an image of the toolbar and some of the tools on it had transversed label names. Obviously the editors and the proofreaderf and the writers were out on a long lunch when that happened. In actionscipting, the coding depends on your the attention to detail. The spacing, the uppercase vs lowercase. Anyway, point being. Some of the test book lessons did not match up with the final lessons on the cd rom. Some code was out of it's place, the book indicated it went in the end, when in reality it went in the middle and I also noticed that their spacing in various methods and functions rendered the code non-functionable. On the disk, the spacing was VERY different. I am an art director who justw anted to brush up on action scrippting during my vacation (yes my vacation). I swear I am considering sending a bill for my wasted time and frustration to Jobe and Danny. I am livid. THANK GOD ADOBE BOUGHT OUT FLASH. Macromedia (Jobe and Danny that means you) should not be allowed to write books ever again. The only happy ending to this story is that I can possibly write this book off at tax time and get my money back. Very disapointed and frustrated.

Just Alright? - 2007-03-19
Reviewer Rating:
Book appears rushed, incomplete, and at times translated from another language. Consider this sentence:

"When the user clicks on the target movie clip, call the onPress() method of DraggableRectangle"

Obviously, something, possibly an article -- "it" is missing from the second clause. To someone with intermediate familiarity with AS, this omission is easily negotiated but to a beginner, it could be a major hurdle.

If you can tolerate and survive mistakes like the aforementioned, this book is actually a qualified "not bad" intermediate book. Unfortunately, there isn't sufficient sophistication or depth to really move your work to the next level. You'll learn a few things but this book will probably not remain on your shelf as an essential reference to AS once completed.

great book if you know some flash - 2007-03-13
Reviewer Rating:
if you are a flash developer/designer who is comfortable with the basics of flash and actionscript, this book is awesome. confusing topics like listeners and the delegate class are covered well. i really liked this book and recommend it - i've recently recommended it to my brother because i think he understands arrays and for loops and xml, etc but would like to get a better handle on it, he's going to like this book as well.
fyi i also had Jobe Makar's game book(green cover) and liked that as well.

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