| Having read Flash
5 Advanced (herein referred to as "the other book") just before I read
this one, I noticed a few similarities between the content of the two books. Naturally, I
compared them and have to say that while this one looks much prettier, it often doesn't go
into as much detail as the other book. The
first two chapters of Flash 5 Magic show you how to make
interactive Quicktime movies and how to set up printable Flash documents. The other book
shows you how to do these things, too, but the difference is that the other book's lessons
are self-sufficient; in other words, it gives you the know-how and doesn't require you to
read instructions on how to go through the included CD's source files.
Chapter 3 shows you how to make a calendar that will display
information when certain dates are clicked. By following the book's instructions and
typing in the required Actionscript, you'll learn what it takes to make such an
application. However, without giving more thorough information of what a "UI"
does in a "Smart Clip," this book forces you to either bang your head against
the wall, surf the 'net for a more detailed tutorial, or in my case, refer to...
...the other book.
Chapter 4 is a continuation of the calendar lesson, and shows
you how to use Actionscript that's stored within external text files. While the authors
were at it, they should have also included instructions on how to pull information for the
different calendar dates from external text files. Otherwise, someone would have to edit
the FLA file and upload the SWF every time they wanted to add a log entry. The next
chapter deals with using Arrays to place the answers to multiple-choice questions in
random order, and does the job well.
Chapter 6 involves the creation of a keyboard game that could
be done much easier and more effectively by using the various methods associated with
String objects. Of course, I only know this because I read...
...the other book.
Never fear, friends, things get better: chapters 7, 8 and 9,
written by guest author Samuel Wan, mark this book's turning point. Finely detailed and
thoroughly enjoyable, these three well-written chapters will tell you everything you've
ever wanted to know about collision detection, moving objects based on their rotation, and
using arrays to track how many "bad guys" to keep on the screen. They begin with
helping you understand how to break games into their individual components, and how to
construct them using the "modular approach" (one step at a time).
Chapter 10 will show you how to take command of the Color
object and create a cool little app that will allow your viewers to "paint"
objects, draw lines, ellipses and rectangles. It'll also show you how to customize the
mouse cursor when people visit your site.
If you've ever wanted to know how to create animations that
are generated through Actionscript, Chapter 11 will show you the way. Well-written and
in-depth, you'll learn all about the power of the Clip Event here. The next chapter will
help you utilize Shared Libraries to keep your Flash sites streamlined and easy to edit. I
had to skip Chapter 13 because I don't have access to any servers that run ASP. However, I
was happy to find out that the CD includes instructions for converting ASP to Cold Fusion
or JavaServer Pages.
Chapter 14 will show you how to how to create complex
chess-board type games, where the user must line up pieces of different colors in order to
get points (I'm sure you've seen many games like this online). This task is accomplished
by using functions to continuously check to see if a set of conditions is met.
Explanations are thorough here.
The three-part series of chapters 15, 16, and 17 contain some
of the most powerful information this book holds. They'll show you how to create product
catalogs that will be easy to manage and update by integrating Flash templates with HTML
and XML. They'll also show you how to generate dynamic menus purely by using Actionscript.
In other words, when your client needs to add items to their product line, they won't have
to meddle with the Flash source files; instead, all they'll need to do is make a few
text-based modifications and the menus will be updated automatically.
The placement of chapters 18 through 20 somewhat disrupt the
book's flow from personal to professional Flash application, and it appears as though they
were added as last-minute items.
Chapter 18 will show you how to create a poorly-designed and
impractical interface that plays music loops and will allow your viewers to play with the
music's volume and panning. Rather than applying this book's own knowledge of the modular
approach, the author decided to place all the music inside a single file that ends up
being 654k. If you were to use this source file on your own site, you'd not only bore your
visitors to death with an endless preloader, but will also annoy them with a precarious
volume knob that moves very slowly and even wiggles up and down when you try to use it. If
it were to use the loadMovie command and timelines, this chapter would not only teach the
"innocents" the virtue of the almighty file size, it would also speed up export
time and make a better interface that could include fast forward and rewind buttons.
What would be a personal Flash site without mouse-driven
animation effects? Once again, guest author Samuel Wan saves the day with a
well-illustrated and easy to understand Chapter 19. The lesson uses source files that are
easy to customize if you decide you want to add mouse trailers to your site.
Flash 5 Magic ends with a bang and two chapters that
will show you how to structure a massive Flash-based site that will not only be easy for
you to update, but also fun for your site's visitors to customize to their own individual
needs. They'll show you how truly powerful Flash 5 is with its database integration
abilities. Best of all, the relatively new language of XML will no longer be a mystery to
you!
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