[.ca] Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 5 in 24 Hours (ISBN 067231892X)

From Amazon.com:
Flash 5, the application from Macromedia for creating animation for the Web, is deceptively simple at first, yet has great depth and flexibility. Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 5 in 24 Hours from Sams Publishing is an ideal introduction to this package, and offers an overview of the entire package, without being overwhelming. Built around four main sections, the book starts out by teaching us the basics: using the native painting and drawing tools, importing prepared material, and using Flash Libraries for reusing material. During these early chapters, readers are introduced to the tools, palettes, windows, and features of Flash 5. Screen shots appear on every page, and each step and description is clear even to the novice. Some pages also feature sidebars that offer tips, ideas, and explanations of the task at hand. These are generally one paragraph or so, but often shed light on a difficult concept. After focusing on animation and different ways of animating objects, the book opens the doors to interactivity, where you begin using interactive features, creating animated buttons, and using Actions to create nonlinear movies. Although it's designed for the beginner, the book touches on some of the more advanced concepts of Flash in its last few chapters. Using Flash in a team environment, optimizing a Flash site to get the most out of the medium, and exploring advanced animation concepts like anticipation, exaggeration, and simulating depth are introduced, although none of these sections gets too involved. It's more of a way to introduce the designer to what's possible and suggest avenues for further study. Favorite features of the books in the Teach Yourself series are the summary, Q & A, and Workshop sections that are at the end of each hour (or chapter). The summary reinforces everything that was covered, the Q & A section answers about a half dozen of the more commonly asked questions on the material, and the Workshop is generally a quiz or short assignment that's designed to make use of the features or techniques that were just learned. These chapter features make this an excellent course book. Flash 5 offers the Web-based animator a large array of features, and Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 5 in 24 Hours is an excellent introduction to most of them. --Mike Caputo

Very good book for one new to Flash:
After looking over the reviews of several Flash books I chose this one because of its high ratings. After using it I find it does indeed deserve the praise given. It's perfect for someone like me just starting out with Flash. I only give four stars because of a few errors, most minor, but one fairly important one which caused some serious grumbling and gnashing of teeth on my part--In Hour 16, radiobuttons, page 351, the author neglects to instruct the reader to put a stop action in the first frame. Still, it's a great book and well worth the money.

This is the worst book:
The book teaches you the elements of using Flash but the exercises it instructs you to do are many times pointless...most especially the actionscript programming lessons. The "step by step" directions are confusing...at the end of the book, I was left wondering how I am going to build a usable flash site? Well, I know how to animate a bouncing ball...but what the hell is that going to do for my flash site? This is a confusing and worthless book.

Great book for one new to Flash:
Please disregard the previous review I submitted as it contains an error. It should read that the author left out a gotoAndStop action on the rectangular button, not a Stop action on the 1st keyframe.

Excellent:
Wonderful for anyone interested in Flash. The pace is never slowed to explain the ins and outs of basic computer use, yet everyone should be able to grasp the concepts explored. It was worth the \omoney\c I payed; get it now for \oless\c!

24hrs! its worth every minute:
i'm just about to start chapter 8, i'm taking a break...Although I plan on finishing this book in 8 days rather than the marketing tool of 24hrs, the book is amazing! Its easy to read, full of easy to follow and useful tasks in each chapter, and has a summary and quiz at the end of each chapter to make sure you're paying attention. One thing i like so far is that the author writes like he's talking. He will repeat important things over and over until you yourself have it memorized. LOL! Great book and defenitly a book that I will finish reading and following to the end.