[.ca] Macromedia Studio MX Bible (ISBN 0764525239)

UGH!! What a waste of time and money!:
I had to buy this book as a text book for a college level class I am taking on Macromedia Studio MX. The book is just about worthless. Instead of trying to work through the tutorials, which all seem to have needed information left out, I ahve been spending my time for free on the Macromedia website doing their tutorials. Also the books seems to be geared more for the person who is upgrading from a prior version of Studio than to a new user. If I didn't have to use this book as a text book it would ahve gone STRAIGHT BACK to the college bookstore where I bought it.

I flunked my Webpage Design class because of THIS BOOK.:
I absoutely hate this book. I had to buy it for a webpage design class and I can't understand why the teacher uses this for a textbook. I've never seen an application (computer program) how-to book that left me this confused--and these kind of books don't easily leave me confused as I have learned HTML. Photoshop, and PHP from books (I have several books on each!). As was stated below, this book doesn't give you enough information to understand what the heck you're doing. If you've had no previous experience with Macromedia Studio programs I can almost GARENTEE that you won't make it even halfway through this book (if that) before you're ready to chuck it out the window. It is virtually impossible to understand the instructions and explanations given in the book if you aren't already very familiar with some prior Macromedia Studio program(s) because the language is out of the beginners grasp. It's because of this book that I had to drop out of my Multimedia & Webpage Design class. Thank you Macromedia Studio MX Bible! Do yourself a favor: Don't get this book. Don't waste good money.

Hit the Button for Me!:
Since this book stated it was beginner through intermediate it did provide that for me. There was enough information for me to get a good feel on each subject. On the subjects a bit over my head and the ones I wanted more beginner detail on, I purchased a beginner book specific to that topic. The intermediate topics simply spurred my interest to explor further. Not only are there a lot of examples but a website was added to with every single application. As far as Flash, there was extra material which was project based on the CD ROM. If Flash were my interest I'd have purchased the Flash Bible. The book states that it's focus is on integrating the Studio applications together, and in that end, it did an admirable job. It's unrealistic to expect one book to teach everything there is to know about 5 applications--hence the name INTEGRATING Studio MX Bible :-) I also understand that the Bible is a reference book not a step by step book. I purchase a lot of computer books and have found there are specific types. For people who want a total hand holding experience I'd suggest a tutorial book not a reference book. For my money, this book more than earned it's $40 I paid!

Fails to deliver on its ambitions:
Samuel Johnson remarked once that learning in Scotland was like bread in a siege town. Everyone got some but none got enough to make a meal. His quip could equally apply to this book. It touches on everything, but doesn't cover anything in sufficient depth. In fact I would tend to view the book as really centered around bringing Fireworks and Freehand into play (contra Illustrator and Photoshop). Freehand and Fireworks get 200 pages each, while Flash gets 90 pages. Dreamweaver gets just under 300 pages, and the surface of many features is revealed. However, there isn't a lot of depth throughout and elaborate examples are avoided. The rest of the book is focused on Cold Fusion (which was not of interest to me). My personal recommendation is to look at specific books for specific components. Compendium type books, often suggest more than they can deliver.

Definitely not show-and-tell:
This book spends most of its time providing definitions of words and terms and little of its time providing demonstrations of concepts. What tutorials and exercises there are do NOT always work as seamlessly as the author would seem to suggest. In fact, some instructions don't work at all -- leaving the reader to figure out the inner workings of an application by trial and error. If you'd like to have a book that TELLS you what everything means but doesn't SHOW or tell you how to accomplish it, this is the one for you.