Flash 5 with ActionScript Magic [With CDROM] - used book

This is the follow-up to last year's extremely popular and well-regarded Flash 4 Magic. Once again, the authors have assembled smart and visually attractive projects that reflect real-world applications faced by professional Web developers today. As in the previous volume, the text walks readers step-by-step through the project files (provided on the CD). The text is to the left, and ample screen shots and boxes of code are to the right in a wide-format book that lies open easily in front of the computer.

This is a completely new book, though, with new projects and a closer focus on ActionScript. It's not a Flash primer. Readers should already be familiar with the authoring environment and the basics of how to make .swf files. What the book does concentrate on is basic to advanced object-oriented scripting, Flash application development, client/server interaction, rich media content development, and animations that utilize all these issues and more.

The book can be read in both a linear and nonlinear fashion. The authors selected techniques that are widely used on the Web today and grouped them under categories where they're most likely to be needed. For example, for sites geared towards online entertainment and streaming video, there's a project using a QuickTime/Flash integration. Other categories (and projects) include education, games, and simulations (a "Bubble Fighter" spaceship game that employs programming with trigonometry); product promotion and brand marketing (an "animated brochure" interface for a cleaning spray that incorporates a form integrated with a database and a game); and a freelance Web developer's portfolio (showing off a soundplayer interface, mouse trailer effects, and a background randomizer). Each chapter and project is subdivided into fairly self-contained miniprojects that can be read and used separately--for example, a board game that demonstrates Flash 5's new function capability. Each minitask ends with a "How It Works" section, which serves as a good introduction as well as a summary.

With Flash 5, ActionScript is different and more powerful than before, and Flash 4 users, as well as all readers, are advised to first read the ActionScript introduction that comes bundled with the app. Flash 5 Magic's excellent writing, as well as its layout, is clean and uncluttered, and, most importantly, makes the "magic" behind ActionScripting seem doable. --Angelynn Grant

Topics covered: QuickTime/Flash integration Printing with Flash Working with Smart Clips Working with arrays Handling keyboard input Using modular programming to create a game Programming with trigonometry Programming collision detection with multiple projectiles Using Color object, attachMovie action, symbol linkage and Mouse object to create a coloring book style game Creating scripted animations (e.g., zoom in & out, rotate) Using shared libraries to manage assets Working with forms and ASP Working with functions Utilizing XML data Displaying rich text Generating dynamic menus Setting up audio controls Creating mouse-driven effects Manipulating movie clip attributes External database integration