ActionScript is the native scripting language of Flash. ActionScript knowledge is essential within the world of Flash design and development, as Flash remains a leading tool for cutting-edge interactive design and development.

ActionScript is what gives Flash its power, but with that power comes a certain level of complexity, which can be intimidating. This beginners book, significantly updated since the last edition, covers all of the basics of ActionScript using the latest version of Flash, Flash 8. The skills acquired by working through this book will enable you to move on to more advanced friends of ED books such as Foundation PHP 5 for Flash, Foundation ActionScript Animation or Foundation XML for Flash.

This book contains all you need to understand and make use of ActionScript, and to have some fun while learning. The Foundation series teaching style is ideal if you're a non-programmer who wants to learn Flash programming quickly and thoroughly. The authors teach the basics, and provide you an all-around proficiency in ActionScript, as well as Flash components within Flash 8. You'll gain the practical skills to build ActionScript based Flash projects, including making initial design decisions, structuring code, and testing. An ongoing case study means that by the end of the book, you'll have constructed a cutting-edge Flash site to showcase your newly learned skills.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 9 Ratings

Well structured, No boring Jargon and Everything you need in one book. - 2007-05-12
Reviewer Rating:
I am new to actionscript, have watched a few Total Training dvd's, but they don't really go into indepth actionscript. Unless you buy all the dvd's which are expensive.
This book was great. And has given my mind more of an understanding, especially of the process, of programming.
I'm more a graphic designer, who is getting into web design, so if I can go from first page through to the end in 3 weeks and juggle a screaming 2yr old at the same time.....well then anyone can.( I am a stay at home dad!....by the way)
Good to keep for reference. Buy it.

Excellent Beginner ActionScript Guide - 2007-03-19
Reviewer Rating:
I was completely foreign to ActionScript before picking up this book. I had previously read one book on understanding the basic flash interface (i.e. using the drawing/tweening tools), but this was my first crack at ActionScript. Getting through this book was very easy. Each chapter is setup in a way that explains a specific topic, runs you through a few examples using what you just learned, and then continues on with an ongoing website project that you develop throughout the book.

Strengths: Writing is clear and concise, and doesn't feel like a programmer wrote the book. The context is a nice mix of theory and hands on practice to keep you interested while your learning some of the more complex topics. The teaching method looks to provide you with skills that you can apply and expand upon quickly, as opposed to just learning some commands and then throwing you out into the wild. The book projects are very well constructed and explained.

Weaknesses: Some of the later chapters advance quickly. I blew through the first 350 pages, but after that had to significantly slow down to fully understand each topic. I also noticed that one or two of the online downloads are missing files for the book project. These are not neccesary if you are writing everything from scratch (correctly), but it did sometimes get in the way of comparing my solutions to the books.

Overall I have been extremely satisfied with this book, and will most likely buy another Foundation guide.

Know Nothing? This is the one for you - 2008-03-16
Reviewer Rating:
I am not too far into this book, but so far it is everything i had hoped for. I have been using Flash for 6 years but never ventured into ActionScript.
This book explains things well for the no-ActionScript-knowledge user.

Great book and at $9 (80% off) when i got it, i would have to have been raving mad not to buy it.

Good One Amazon :))

A Great ActionScript Book By Designers For Designers - 2007-07-24
Reviewer Rating:
This is a great book for the designer interested in getting deeper into Flash through ActionScript 2.0. Primarily centered around web-based projects, with the occasional game project, Sham et al. lead the reader through basic programming fundamentals from a designer perspective. The reader is assumed to be mildly frightened by looking at code, but still interested in learing it. I can sympathize that many designers could be in this boat.

The language of the book is very non-technical and it's presented in a light-hearted manner to ease you into some difficult concepts. The authors do a great job of tricking you into getting excited about programming. So if you're a web designer who has always been impressed by what programmers can do, but were a little uncomfortable trying to just jump in on your own, this is THE book for you.

I have two warnings and one critique.

The first warning is that this is a Flash 8 book - hence ActionScript 2.0. The second warning is that almost all the projects in the book are web-based instead of game-based. Now it's Flash, so it kind of comes with the territory, and there is a full chapter devoted to making a game. However, the perfect book for me would be this exact same book, but centered almost completely around game-based projects. If you're strictly looking for that, this book isn't for you. I don't care as much, and there's still a lot to learn, so I don't regret purchasing the book.

My critique is regarding the book-long project where you make a website that uses ActionScript (the Futuremedia site). It's a case study where you can apply some of what you've learned to a "real" project. My problem with it is that you don't seem to learn a whole lot about ActionScripting by going through it. The authors (or whichever individual wrote the project) seem to be really proud of this project - proud in the sense that they like themselves for it - and you can tell by going throug it. Plus, its more content-oriented. There's much more to learn from everything else, so I'm just skipping the project and skimming over it whenever it's time to work on it a little (which isn't a whole lot anyway).

Overall, it's a great book so far (I'm about 1/3 done) and I'd recommend it to anyone who's new to programming and wants to learn it through ActionScript 2.0. Sham has an awesome ability to explain programming to a designer.

Useful - 2009-11-07
Reviewer Rating:
Helpful book. ActionScript 2.0 is a very well-structured language, and this book gives it justice by thoroughly explaining the structure. If, like me, you're coming from creative background but are new to programming, be prepared to have your brain work at the edge of its processing capacity, but it's worth it. At times I found my mind fogged with the amount of new information introduced in each new chapter, but just when I felt I've missed something a few pages ago, that very thing was explained and reinforced.

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