Macromedia Flash MX: Training from the Source [Paperback]

Again, don't expect anything more than a "tour" of Flash, more in depth books are available. The reason I started with this book is to gain familiarity with the tools of Flash, get working on a quick project, and then advance to other books/training sources.

Overall, it's not 5 worthy, but I'll give it a 4 since it does a good job of giving me the upper-level details of FlashMX and ActionScript.

First of all, this was probably a VERY difficult book to write. As an author myself, I have to sympathize. Flash concepts are difficult (because they're so intricate), the Flash interface is very difficult (because it's so intricate) and putting all the pieces of a movie together is difficult (because they're so intricate). This would be a very difficult book to write.

Second of all, the author was VERY good about explaining how to perform each step, even after she explained it a million times. For instance, the flash interface is so difficult that you may forget how to center a a shape. Everytime she asks you to center a shape, she tells you, again and again, how to do it. It must be very frustrating for an author to explain things ad nausem like that. But for a topic like flash for beginners, it's necessary.

The illustrations are great.

So that's what the author got right. Now I'll go into what she got wrong. I'll give you the punchline right now, though. The bad outweighs the good. By a lot, considering the amount of time it takes to go through the book.

I fully agree with deltatangou's review. The book is highly non-linear. It jumps from this to that, and can be accused of being very disorganized. She's meticulous in detail, but this kind of "from A to H and then from B to W" type of learning is not suitable for some kinds of people.

I suspect that this book might be good for people who have solid memories and like to learn things "by the seat of their pants". Many artists I know are like this.

However, if you're a methodical learner, and use knowledge to build on previously learned knowledge, this book will make you dizzy. You'll wonder "what the heck did I learn two chapters ago". You'll feel like you did a bunch of examples but didn't learn much.

The book is "goal oriented", and takes a top to bottom approach. The final goal is some flash project about a virtual zoo. This only aggravates the problem. Again, top to bottom learning is great for "seat of the pants" learning. You learn what you need to know, when you need to know it. Personally, I don't learn this way, but perhaps you do. I find it very difficult to see the trees through the forest with this book.

The only other flash book I've seen (and I've only thumbed through it) is the "Flash in 24 hours" book. From my percursory glance, it looks to be more suitable for me: it looks like it takes a bottom up approch.

Anyway, I'm giving this book one star, with the provisio that perhaps there are people who like to learn this way.