This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

With most U.S. households having Internet connections, more people than ever are looking to develop their own sophisticated Web sites. The need for easy-to-grasp information on how to make an interactive and well-designed site has never been higher as more people need to learn or improve their Web skills. For the busy professionals whose boss wants them to jazz up their Web site, or the student burning the midnight oil to put together some Web animations for a class, Creating a Web Site with Adobe Flash CS4 Professional: Visual QuickProject Guide is just the book they need to start creating Flash sites in an instant. Pared down to just the essentials, this book shows readers who are short on time just what they need to know to accomplish their first project in Flash. Topics covered include using the Flash authoring tool, creating and animating graphics, tweening, loading dynamic data, and adding sound and video, plus coverage of new Flash CS4 features. It’s everything readers need to know to develop their Web site using Adobe Flash! The book’s companion Web site offers project files and updates.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 5 Ratings

Same project but new features and techniques - 2009-03-08
Reviewer Rating:
When I review a new edition of a book which I have previously reviewed, I look for new information that I feel should have been added to the book. In the case of this book by David Morris, the website project is the same but much has been added to keep up with the new Flash features. Morris has done a great job of choosing which of the new features and techniques will be most useful to his audience. So what new information has been added to this edition of Creating a Web Site with Flash CS4?

As mentioned above, the project website is a newer, updated version of the original project. The author uses many supporting screenshots to reinforce the step-by-step instructions as he walks you through building the website. Of course, he begins with a tour of the new Flash interface and introduces the new features that you will use during the project such as the Edit Bar and Motion Editor.

Beginning the project, you start by building the background for the website using the Flash drawing tools including the new graphic primitives and 9-slice scaling. Next, you use Text tools to add static text and hyperlinks. Moving on, you learn the new steps for importing graphics into Flash from other programs such as Photoshop. Morris discusses the new dialog box and object options for layers and objects when importing Illustrator files. You use layers and the Library to organize your assets. You add a mask layer and edit masked objects to add the finishing touch to the background.

The website structure is still organized along the Timeline, as in previous editions. And, as before, you build your own interactive buttons with Button Symbols. When its time to program the buttons, the code is updated for ActionScript 3. When building the animation for the website, you use the new Motion Presets for shape tweens and 3D rotation and the Motion Editor for fine tuning your animation. The website photo gallery is updated to use XML and UI Components and the dynamic text is now formatted by CSS. You will also learn how to use Flash form and video components. Finally, you set up the HTML and SWF settings for publishing your website.

David Morris has been a website and graphic designer for many years. He was product manager for Macromedia Fireworks and Freehand, as well as part of the Fireworks development team.

Decent project, but filled with errors - 2009-01-25
Reviewer Rating:
I just got this from the local library, CS4 version. The way the text is layed out is really annoying. It has large type but is surprisingly hard to read. I find that reading the much blander layout of Adobe's Classroom in a book, to be much easier.

So far I am only half way through, but I have already found a host of errors and typos. Most of them are centered around the book's inability to keep a continuous stream of teaching. Parts don't quite match up with each other, or are called slightly different things than they actually are, leaving the reader to guess.

I HAVE learned some interesting things from this book that the Classroom in a Book CS4 didn't show me, but overall i would consider other options, unless you can borrow it from a library or friend.

great quick learning guide - 2009-08-22
Reviewer Rating:
I'm familiar with a lot of the CS4 products already and needed to teach myself Flash very quickly. I spent about a week going through video tutorials online, but found that none of them were sufficient in explaining the work flow. This book does a wonderful job guiding you through an entire project and I feel like I learned almost as much in two days as I would with 8 weeks of classroom instruction. Of course in a classroom you would be spending time creating your own project and having specific questions answered, but I just feel that this is great for not having the time and money to invest in a full course. After going through the project in this book, I have a much better understanding of how to work with Flash and feel comfortable enough to build my own website/presentation in Flash.

At first glance the layout bothered me because it looked very messy. However, after working through a couple pages I didn't mind it anymore. In fact I find it helpful to have all the labels pointing to the images so there is no guessing what the author is referring to. The contents might take more time to figure out if you're not familiar with similar programs and terminologies already, but I still think it's worth trying.

Web Flash made easy - 2009-08-06
Reviewer Rating:
I love using flash since Macromedia flash mx 2004 came out. But have only done flash aniamtions and a basic website. This book was so easy to follow with its clear instructions and diagrams. It is a must for those who are new to making flash websites.

A Lot of How and What's to Flash, but few 'Why am I doing what you're telling me to do?" - 2009-10-06
Reviewer Rating:
Flipping through the pages, I thought that this would be excellent resource for a web designer like me to learn how to start making websites in flash. It has great pictures, there's step by step instructions for many things, it seems to get right to the point, so I went and bought it.

As I'm going through the book, it became frustrating to me that this book is very good at telling you WHAT to do, but very poor at telling you WHY you're doing it. Due to the fact that the Flash program is quite complex, the book tries to cut corners by being short and just laying out "just do this", "don't do this", "click this", "select this", etc...

This is problematic because it doesn't give a me a better understanding of how to use Flash really. I'm going through each of the chapters sometimes wondering, "What did I just do? But whatever it was, I did it" That's a good accomplishment for 3rd graders; not good for people who want to seriously learn the tools Flash offers to make great websites and beyond.

The complexity of Flash CS4 calls for much more explanation and this book does not offer much of it.

I would personally recommend Missing Manual's Flash CS4 book as it's been a LOT more helpful. But do some research, I'm sure there are other better resources out there.

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