Book Description
ActionScript is the native scripting language of Flash. ActionScript knowledge is essential within the world of Flash design and development, as Flash remains a leading tool for cutting-edge interactive design and development. ActionScript is what gives Flash its power, but with that power comes a certain level of complexity, which can be intimidating. This beginners book, significantly updated since the last edition, covers all of the basics of ActionScript using the latest version of Flash, Flash 8. The skills acquired by working through this book will enable you to move on to more advanced friends of ED books such as Foundation PHP 5 for Flash, Foundation ActionScript Animation or Foundation XML for Flash. This book contains all you need to understand and make use of ActionScript, and to have some fun while learning. The Foundation series teaching style is ideal if youre a non-programmer who wants to learn Flash programming quickly and thoroughly. The authors teach the basics, and provide you an all-around proficiency in ActionScript, as well as Flash components within Flash 8. Youll gain the practical skills to build ActionScript based Flash projects, including making initial design decisions, structuring code, and testing. An ongoing case study means that by the end of the book, youll have constructed a cutting-edge Flash site to showcase your newly learned skills. Summary of Contents:
- Chapter 1 Interactive Flash
- Chapter 2 Making Plans
- Chapter 3 Movies That Remember
- Chapter 4 Movies That Decide for Themselves
- Chapter 5 More Power, Less Script
- Chapter 6 Movies That Remember How to Do Things
- Chapter 7 Objects and Classes
- Chapter 8 Objects on the Stage
- Chapter 9 Reusable Code and Realistic Movement
- Chapter 10 Games and Sprites
- Chapter 11 Drawing API
- Chapter 12 Adding Sound to Flash
- Chapter 13 Loading Dynamic Data with XML
- Chapter 14 Finishing the Futuremedia Case Study
- Chapter 15 Advanced ActionScript: Components and Classes
Customer Reviews:
A Great ActionScript Book By Designers For Designers.......2007-07-24
This is a great book for the designer interested in getting deeper into Flash through ActionScript 2.0. Primarily centered around web-based projects, with the occasional game project, Sham et al. lead the reader through basic programming fundamentals from a designer perspective. The reader is assumed to be mildly frightened by looking at code, but still interested in learing it. I can sympathize that many designers could be in this boat.
The language of the book is very non-technical and it's presented in a light-hearted manner to ease you into some difficult concepts. The authors do a great job of tricking you into getting excited about programming. So if you're a web designer who has always been impressed by what programmers can do, but were a little uncomfortable trying to just jump in on your own, this is THE book for you.
I have two warnings and one critique.
The first warning is that this is a Flash 8 book - hence ActionScript 2.0. The second warning is that almost all the projects in the book are web-based instead of game-based. Now it's Flash, so it kind of comes with the territory, and there is a full chapter devoted to making a game. However, the perfect book for me would be this exact same book, but centered almost completely around game-based projects. If you're strictly looking for that, this book isn't for you. I don't care as much, and there's still a lot to learn, so I don't regret purchasing the book.
My critique is regarding the book-long project where you make a website that uses ActionScript (the Futuremedia site). It's a case study where you can apply some of what you've learned to a "real" project. My problem with it is that you don't seem to learn a whole lot about ActionScripting by going through it. The authors (or whichever individual wrote the project) seem to be really proud of this project - proud in the sense that they like themselves for it - and you can tell by going throug it. Plus, its more content-oriented. There's much more to learn from everything else, so I'm just skipping the project and skimming over it whenever it's time to work on it a little (which isn't a whole lot anyway).
Overall, it's a great book so far (I'm about 1/3 done) and I'd recommend it to anyone who's new to programming and wants to learn it through ActionScript 2.0. Sham has an awesome ability to explain programming to a designer.
Well structured, No boring Jargon and Everything you need in one book........2007-05-13
I am new to actionscript, have watched a few Total Training dvd's, but they don't really go into indepth actionscript. Unless you buy all the dvd's which are expensive.
This book was great. And has given my mind more of an understanding, especially of the process, of programming.
I'm more a graphic designer, who is getting into web design, so if I can go from first page through to the end in 3 weeks and juggle a screaming 2yr old at the same time.....well then anyone can.( I am a stay at home dad!....by the way)
Good to keep for reference. Buy it.
Excellent Beginner ActionScript Guide.......2007-03-19
I was completely foreign to ActionScript before picking up this book. I had previously read one book on understanding the basic flash interface (i.e. using the drawing/tweening tools), but this was my first crack at ActionScript. Getting through this book was very easy. Each chapter is setup in a way that explains a specific topic, runs you through a few examples using what you just learned, and then continues on with an ongoing website project that you develop throughout the book.
Strengths: Writing is clear and concise, and doesn't feel like a programmer wrote the book. The context is a nice mix of theory and hands on practice to keep you interested while your learning some of the more complex topics. The teaching method looks to provide you with skills that you can apply and expand upon quickly, as opposed to just learning some commands and then throwing you out into the wild. The book projects are very well constructed and explained.
Weaknesses: Some of the later chapters advance quickly. I blew through the first 350 pages, but after that had to significantly slow down to fully understand each topic. I also noticed that one or two of the online downloads are missing files for the book project. These are not neccesary if you are writing everything from scratch (correctly), but it did sometimes get in the way of comparing my solutions to the books.
Overall I have been extremely satisfied with this book, and will most likely buy another Foundation guide.
Great Book for Beginner on up ...........2006-12-06
I am a current animation student in California and Flash is one of the tools we are using. While I have developed some proficiency animating in Flash, the scripting tends to turn my brain to mush after a while.
I picked up Foundation Flash 8 to learn some of the basics and have been using Foundation Actionscript for Flash 8 to gradually explore scripting. I am not a programmer but got through the first few chapters easy enough. The second half of the book is somewhat tougher but but filled with interesting chapters -especially the game chapter (chapter 10).
I haven't quite cleared the hurdle of the later chapters, find them more challenging, but I keep the book on my desk to pick at stuff. It is well written and comprehensive. From my perspective as a non-programming 'art head' I'd say it covers beginner to advanced level topics by the end of the book; that's pretty cool because many books seem to be simple rehashings of the product manuals designed to part you from $40-$50 while giving you no new info.
A diamond amongst coal........2006-12-02
As an old UNIX hack I have read quite a few programming manuals, from the original C (Kerninghan & Richie - when it was new!), to the present. Very few, if any, (including the O'Reilly series), have come close to being so informative, easy to read, and enjoyable as the 'ActionScript for Flash 8' book. I consider myself a poor programmer partly because I never found 'print Hello World!' that interesting. In any event, this book has taken me from rank Actionscript beginner to (dare I say it...) semi-advanced! Basically, cannot recommend it highly enough! For me, I enjoy the graphical nature of Actionscript and I am glad I finally found the right book to take me there. I think beginners and experienced Object-Oriented types will get a lot or something from it. Thanks Friends of ED!
Book Description
In this book, you'll learn
- All the ActionScript 3.0 (including math and trigonometry functions) and Flash rendering techniques you'll need to start animating with code
- Basic motion principles such as velocity, acceleration, friction, easing, and bouncing
- How to handle user interaction via the keyboard and mouse
- Advanced motion techniques such as springs, coordinate rotation, conservation of momentum, and forward and inverse kinematics
- All the basic 3D concepts you need to do 3D in Flash, from simple perspective to full 3D solids complete with backface culling and dynamic lighting
Flash has long been one of the most approachable, user-friendly tools for creating web-based animations, games, and applications. This has contributed to making it one of the most widely used programs for creating interactive web content. With each new version of Flash, ActionScript, its built-in scripting language, has become more powerful and a little more complex, too. ActionScript, now at version 3.0, has significantly matured as a programming language, bringing power and speed only previously dreamed about to Flash-based animation, going far beyond traditionally used keyframes and tweens. The material inside this book covers everything you need to know to harness the power of ActionScript 3.0. First, all the basics of script-based animation and setting up an ActionScript 3.0 project are covered. An introduction to object-oriented programming follows, with the new syntax, events, and rendering techniques of ActionScript 3.0 explained, giving you the confidence to use the language, whether starting from scratch or moving up from ActionScript 2.0. The book goes on to provide information on all the relevant trigonometry you will need, before moving on to physics concepts such as acceleration, velocity, easing, springs, collision detection, conservation of momentum, 3D, and forward and inverse kinematics. In no time at all you'll both understand the concepts of scripted animation and have the ability to create all manner of exciting animations and games.
Summary of Contents
- PART ONE - ACTIONSCRIPTED ANIMATION BASICS
- Chapter 1 Basic Animation Concepts
- Chapter 2 Basics of ActionScript 3.0 for Animation
- Chapter 3 Trigonometry for Animation
- Chapter 4 Rendering Techniques
- PART TWO - BASIC MOTION
- Chapter 5 Velocity and Acceleration
- Chapter 6 Boundaries and Friction
- Chapter 7 User Interaction: Moving Objects Around
- PART THREE - ADVANCED MOTION
- Chapter 8 Easing and Springing
- Chapter 9 Collision Detection
- Chapter 10 Coordinate Rotation and Bouncing Off Angles
- Chapter 11 Billiard Ball Physics
- Chapter 12 Particle Attraction and Gravity
- Chapter 13 Forward Kinematics: Making Things Walk
- Chapter 14 Inverse Kinematics: Dragging and Reaching
- PART FOUR - 3D ANIMATION
- Chapter 15 3D Basics
- Chapter 16 3D Lines and Fills
- Chapter 17 Backface Culling and 3D Lighting
- PART FIVE - ADDITIONAL TECHNIQUES
- Chapter 18 Matrix Math
- Chapter 19 Tips and Tricks
Customer Reviews:
Now I understand..........2007-09-30
If you, like me, are designer centric then this may very well be the answer for you when it comes to understanding actionscript. AS2 was a very forgiving but highly mysterious language to me but I was able to make it work even though the how and why remained a blank area. When AS3 arrived I was totally lost in a programmers world were actionscript had suddenly become a foriegn language study.
Buying Foundation Actionscript 3.0 has changed that, although it isn't a book for first time flash users as it assumes that the reader knows Flash fundementals, it clearly leads a non-programmer, like myself, into how to work with AS3 AND understand the why of it working so that one becomes able to work with AS3 and build your own applications with the knowledge of how and why they work.
Excellently written and so so easy to follow!!!
Good but not for who does not have any experience in ACS3.......2007-08-18
If you just buy this book and read the codes are not going to work you have to understand the new concept in ACS3.It is similar then ACS2 but works a lit a bit different way so that is why a first time a codes did work for me as I read in others reviews.You have to learn what means class than open the book it will be more clear to you.
What Can't Actionscript Do?.......2007-08-14
For animation and programming outside the Adobe Flash interface, this is one of the best books I have read. It starts out with an introduction to concepts that apply across the board for animation and then continues on in to physics based animation and eventually 3D programming. While the book uses ActionScript as the primary language, the concepts it employs easily translate into other graphical programming languages.
Something to keep in mind when you order this book is that it will not teach you how to use Adobe Flash. While "Making Things Move" is very applicable to this program, it is geared more towards Flex Builder 2 and the Flex/AS 3 command-line compiler and Flex 2 SDK (the last two of which are free from Adobe's website at the time of writing this review).
If you are looking for a book that will help you get started with Flash-based game development, this is a great book to use. I would consider it an excellent resource for both novice and advanced users.
If you are looking for a book on developing sites that interact with databases or send and retrieve online data, this is not the book for you. Instead I would suggest The Essential Guide to Flex 2 with ActionScript 3.0.
Another resource I would reccomend for any Flash developer is ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook: Solutions for Flash Platform and Flex Application Developers, which is good for just about anything else "Making Things Move!" and "The Essential Guide" don't cover.
Must have.......2007-07-05
This book is a must have for any serious flash artist (no designer/developer tags...). It approaches AS3 as it was meant to be, an objet oriented laguage, not only for .fla projects. The author is in the top of this line and the reason why I gave 4 instead of 5 is that the author does not go as deep as I would have liked in some cases, but still, if I lose the book, I would buy it again.
Problems with code not working.......2007-07-02
I was eagerly awaiting this book because of the good reviews, but I've had lots of problems getting his code to work.
He uses old AS2 keywords in examples as user created function names, but this causes errors. I had to look online to find out that solution. There was nothing on the "Friends of Ed" site.
Next, the drawing example he gives on page 64 did not produce the arrow it was supposed to produce. I am new to this level of coding, so some of my problems may be my lack of experience, but it's tough to learn if the code examples don't work.
I wish the Friend of Ed would post some corrections and/or help. I'm sure that the problems I've had with the book are because the author was using a development version of AS 3.0, but they should get information up about the issues.
Book Description
Sure you can animate using motion tweens, in fact we'll help you do that with our Flash Cartoon Animation book, but isn't there something extra special in making things move with just a few lines of code? In this book Keith Peters guides us through some basic animation theory and then demystifies the math and physics behind creating realistic animation, looking at trigonometry, velocity and acceleration, and bouncing & friction. This book will teach you how to use Flash ActionScript to move the objects in your movies, rather than letting Flashs tween engine do it for you. The benefit of this is smaller, more realistic, more dynamic interactive movies that seem to come alive on your screen. Almost all of the code featured in this book will work fine in either Flash MX 2004 or Flash 8, and with a few minor adjustments, most of it can even be applied to Flash MX. Although the text covers many advanced math and physics concepts, making for very realistic motion, theres no need to worry, even if youre a relative newcomer to programming and the last math class you took was in high school (and even if you barely remember that!). This book first covers everything you need to know to get started: the principles of animation, and the basics of ActionScript, trigonometry, and Flash rendering methods. Youll work your way slowly from using code to move a single object across the screen to creating complex systems that really push Flashs capabilities with topics covered including collision detection, particle attraction, and kinematics. The book concludes with looking at 3D animation techniques, including building a basic 3D engine, 3D lines, fills and solids, and matrix math. Once you come to grips with the ideas presented here, youll find yourself creating all manner of exciting animations and games! Summary of Contents
- Part I ActionScripted Animation Basics
- Ch. 1 Basic Animation Concepts
- Ch. 2 ActionScript Basics for Animation
- Ch. 3 Trigonometry
- Ch. 4 Rendering Techniques
- Part II Basic Motion
- Ch. 5 Velocity and Acceleration
- Ch. 6 Bouncing and Friction
- Ch. 7 User Interaction: Dragging and Throwing
- Part III Advanced Motion
- Ch. 8 Easing and Springs
- Ch. 9 Collision Detection
- Ch. 10 Bouncing off Angles
- Ch. 11 Billiard Ball Physics
- Ch. 12 Particle Attraction
- Ch. 13 Forward Kinematics
- Ch. 14 Inverse Kinematics
- Part IV Three D
- Ch. 15 A Basic 3D Engine
- Ch. 16 3D Lines, Fills, Solids
- Ch. 17 Advanced 3D: Backface Culling and Lighting
- Ch. 18 Matrix Math
- Part V Tips and Tricks
Customer Reviews:
Must Love Actionscript.......2007-09-22
I will atest that this is a great book IF you are an actionscript junkie, but if your not you will hate this book. I was looking for a book to help my students with thier Flash animations and this book was way beyond where I wanted to take my students.
Incredibly well written.......2007-09-10
I bought this book along w/ about 4 others that I needed. This one was the splurge... I was simply going to browse through it and see what I could pick up from it - not really thinking I could fully grasp the advanced concepts.
To my suprise, this book brought you all the way back to those good ole Trig classes and explained what you'd need to recall (or re-learn) and why. Every concept was very well explained and one concept builds upon the next.
It's definitely no light read, but if you really do have a desire to learn, this is the book.
Indeed a great tool for making animations.......2007-07-12
I was looking for a script animation book and I finally found the one that cater to my needs.
Just what I was looking for..........2007-07-12
I started learning Flash 8 about 6 months ago, hoping to make some physics simulation programs and games. I started out by buying Foundation Actionscript for Flash 8 and was quite disappointed to find that the subject of math was avoided at all costs. After reading 100 pages or so, I finally decided I'd just buy this book and hope I had learned enough to get me by. Now I regret not buying this in the first place.
Peters starts with the very basics of physics and takes you step by step on how to translate it into Actionscript. As it goes, it explains what the code means and how it works, making it possible to actually learn a lot about Actionscript in general. Although he explains how the physics works, he makes an effort to keep it at reasonable level and I never found myself the slightest bit bored or confused. This book teaches by example, which is the easiest way for me to learn. Nearly every major and minor topic mentioned has its own example with code in the book (which can also be downloaded off the website).
As can be seen from the table of contents, he gets into some relatively complicated topics and even in these, he does a great job of explaining how it works and how to keep your code efficient, making sure to mention any shortcuts that can make things easier.
So to sum things up
-this book is great at teaching you how to program realistic physics-based motion
-it's amazing at explaining what each bit of code does and how it works to the extent that it can be used as a beginning guide to Actionscript in general.
Great for designers getting a bit skilled and willing to save some time.......2007-05-03
This excellent books helped me save a lot of time understanding the importance - and basics - of physics and physics-related tricks in Actionscript.
Easing, elasticity, and all the fancy stuff I'd seen on hot websites listed on theFWA and such, are now accessible to the mere designers-turned-programers. And that is just plain awesome!
Average customer rating:
- A winner
- Fun book, but that's about it.
- Not the best book that I've read on Actionscript...
- excellent actionscript primer
- Not exactly what I was looking for...
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Foundation ActionScript
Sham Bhangal
Manufacturer: Peer Information Inc.
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ASIN: 1903450322 |
Amazon.com
One of the best tutorials available for designers and nonprogrammers, Foundation ActionScript is perhaps one of the finest introductory programming books ever written--but programmers and Flash experts will be bored stiff by the baby-step teaching methods this book exhibits.
The book assumes the you have no knowledge of programming concepts going in, and introduces the basics using simple, real-world examples to show you that programming is nothing more than breaking down what you want to do into the smallest elements. Author Sham Bhangal takes the example of making tea and sections it out into its composite elements. Then, he writes a pseudoprogram that makes tea, using very clear, accessible, and, above all, comforting language. If you've always been nervous about the seemingly scary idea of "programming," then Foundation ActionScript will reassure you.
Bhangal then brings this idea of simplicity into ActionScript programming, at first showing you how to accomplish simple tasks--like stopping a ball from zipping across the screen--and then gradually turning up the heat as he begins to probe ActionScript's more advanced functions.
The key word here is "gradually," since fundamental programming ideas like variables aren't even mentioned until chapter 6. This gradual process works marvelously in some ways, since Bhangal goes over each topic so thoroughly and exhaustively that you never lose track of what you're learning--and the repetitiveness pays off not only in spades, but also in hearts, clubs, and diamonds.
Suffice it to say that when I started to write this review, I originally said that the book didn't really do anything all that complex because the most complex project was a full-fledged Space Invaders-style game, complete with object-oriented programming, sprite manipulation, and reusable code. Only in retrospect did it occur to me that this involved some fairly heavy-duty tweaking for a beginner--but Foundation ActionScript makes it all seem so easy that programming a video game, albeit a simple one, seemed a trivial thing to do.
Still, there are some definite problems. For one thing, if you are a programmer or understand these concepts, the glacial pace at which the book retreads familiar (to you, at least) ground will be maddening. For another thing, it's very nice to program video games, but one of the things that this book lacks is examples from real-world Web pages. A lot of the examples can be used in real Web sites, but there are also a lot of throwaway examples that are simply used as teaching tools--things like little games, the inputting of passwords, overly-simple bouncing ball loops, and so on. Although this focus provides a lot of basic programming skills, it doesn't really give designers the methodology they need to translate grand topics into simple mathematics. It might have been nice for the book to take some really cool effects from live sites and then deconstruct them to show you how they work, thus giving you the tools you need.
But if you're a novice, there really is nothing better available to teach you Flash scripting and what you use it for. It's easy, it's informative, and it's even a darn fun read--by computer book standards, that is. Highly recommended. --William Steinmetz
Book Description
OK, so you've got the Flash 5 basics under your belt. You've built your typical timeline-based movie but you know that Flash 5 has a lot more to offer your creativity. Foundation ActionScript will open up this new gateway and take you through the transition from linear animation to produce cutting-edge dynamic Flash web sites, all the time remembering that you're a designer, not a programmer. With the emphasis on practicality rather than theory, each chapter will follow the Foundation model and introduce a new topic backed up with step by step examples that combine into a working web site full of ActionScript tricks. You will begin by learning how to plan your ActionScript project, adding actions that provide simple timeline control and taking the full tour through re-usable code, adding sound and building your first interactive Flash 5 game! ActionScript may look like a whole new ball game, but this book will show you that the rules aren't all that different and ! the end result is more exhilarating than you know!
Customer Reviews:
A winner.......2005-10-28
Seems a little late to make a review ;) but I must say that this is an excellent book, of course kind of outdated now as many of the commands are deprecated now but what I love about FOED books is their commitment with teaching and they do it the right way! developing an application entire application from scratch guiding you step by step. FOED Books RULE!
Fun book, but that's about it........2003-01-10
You may not want to start out on your Flash adventures here. This book assumes (as well it should) that you know the basics of flash and are well versed in how flash works and what you can do with it.
That said: it is an Actionscript book. It SHOWS you how to code some cool games/applications etc. None of which are usefull in business. But i'll say however that i did "grasp" the concepts used mostly because i have a big JavaScript background. With a deep understanding of JavaScript i was able to pickup on all the techniques Sham was using.
If you're interested in Actionscript i would suggest getting a book based on Flash MX (rather than flash 5). If you plan to use and deploy movies in flash 5 format, and know some actionscript and want a simple book that SHOWS you how to do things by example then this is your book. This is not by any means an Actionscript Reference. You'd be hard pressed to find more than 15% of flash's true capabilities in this book. It does focus on broad range items that lots of people already know how to do. (You may get as much out of this book as you will by browsing the web to find a bunch of Flash tutorials).
Last note. The game Sham writes in the end is really cool. I was able to make a few variations of the same game using the concepts he did. However the beginner will have a tough time understanding as he goes very quickly assuming you understand some things he didn't quite explain.
Gave 2 stars because its a bit outdated (using flash 5) and that it doesn't explain the actionscript language so much as it does it for you.
Not the best book that I've read on Actionscript..........2002-09-06
If you are serious about learning the basic principles of Actionscript, I recommend skipping this particular title - (sorry...)
This was the first Actionscript book that I had ever purchased, and I found myself purchasing another Actionscript shortly thereafter. Don't get me wrong, for the few days I was learning things, but as soon as the actual coding begins, alot of the syntax explanation was simply not there leaving me with more questions than answers. Even the live example site documented in the book was kinda weak. I like the "Friends of Ed" titles but you can tell that this was an early work.
The most important keys were missing, syntax and way that the Actionscript interpretor in the Flash Player works - pretty important subjects. Luckily, I found a more "definitive guide" (hint to the title) by Colin Moock that covered the language pretty fully and left me with more answers than questions!
excellent actionscript primer.......2002-05-10
from a non-programmers perspective i found this book an incredibly useful way of understanding the concepts of actionscript which had eluded me when working with other books and the products tutorials.
very well structured with excellent examples which can be immediately applied to your own projects, in contrast to other reviewers i found the level of this book to be very high, as i already had an understanding of actionscript, i couldnt have asked to be taken higher in the available space.
time dedicated to working through this book will be well rewarded.
Not exactly what I was looking for..........2002-04-15
This is not bad for a book that shows you what you can do with actionscript. But if you want to know the ins and outs of actionscript like I did, this is not the book you are looking for. I recently purchased another book --AS definitive guide-- which really gave me a full understanding on the subject; this book seems to merely brush on the subject in comparison.
Book Description
Flash guru Sham Bhangal brings us the third edition of everybody’s favorite beginner level Flash scripting book:
Foundation ActionScript. With the release of Flash MX 2004, scripting in Flash has moved from being a desirable asset to an essential skill in the world of web design and development. ActionScript is, quite simply, the key to real power in Flash. Flash is now both a design tool and a development tool, and ActionScript can easily scare designers. This book is for anyone who has ever looked in awe at a cutting-edge Flash site, then taken a look at some code, and run in the other direction. Learning ActionScript with friends of ED will not turn you into a boring programmer, it will turn you into someone who finally has the power to achieve what they want with their web design, and can liberate their creative urges.
This book will take you from knowing nothing about ActionScript to a firm knowledge that will allow you to exercise a previously unimaginable amount of power over your Flash movies. It does this with fully worked examples throughout, and a case study that will leave you with a cutting-edge Flash site by the end of the book.
Customer Reviews:
Bhangal thinks beginners are what?.......2005-07-07
I am sorry , reading the reviews I thought this would be great , so I bought it.I must say editing is horrible , no online help(wrote 5 mails not even 1 answer),lot of mistake in book.The code style changes often so the beginner is bit lost.Then Bhangal suddenly introduces heavy coding without explaining much often (Math.random()*5) +3 or Math.round()...he didn't explain the parameters of random no. selection in AS.
only thing I can say you need to do this book more than once to get hang of AS if u r really a total beginner like me.
If looking a fast way don't get into it if u r a total beginner
Foundation ActionScript for Macromedia Flash MX 2004.......2005-03-29
Mr. Bhangal's wonderful teaching style and excellent writing make this a truly easy and painless experience.
Explained in plain english how to actually *do something* with action script.
Great examples and analogies really drive the concepts home. I think its a big help that Mr. Bhangal is a designer and can speak to a person on a visual level.
And, I had a question, e-mailed Mr. Bhangal, and he got right back to me.
I am currently reading Foundation Dreamweaver MX 2004 and am also very impressed. The Friends of Ed is a great tool for designers looking to learn multimedia and web software.
Well done for beginners, slow for programmers.......2005-01-30
This book was done well for *not* programmers. I'm a relatively seasoned (6+ yrs) Java & C programmer--I found it incredibly slow.
Bhangal spends a ton of time convincing the reader that things such as "event handling" and "classes" are good. Anyone who has written a GUI for the Mac, Windows, X or Java will find a majority of the content incredibly tedious.
The last chapter on "Advanced Actionscript" starts to touch on the areas I find most valuable--specifically scope, sub-classing, the differences between AS 1.0 & 2.0. But that was really it.
Again, for non-programmers or designers (for whom I'm assuming this was designed) I think this might be a great book. Bhangal goes to great lengths to explain the "why's" of programming concepts. For programmers, I'd suggest Macromedia Press's "Flash MX Professionsl 2004 Application Development" by Jeanette Stallons.
Informative but a bit sloppy.......2004-07-19
Overall I found this book helpful in taking me to the next level of ActionScript. The main project of the book from beginning to end is the building of a website called Futuremedia. This web page makes use of many cool tricks the author takes you through step-by-step with pretty good explanations. To teach the reader how to implement these techniques, several smaller coding projects are used to introduce programming concepts that will be later used in the more complex Futuremedia project. Each chapter has several of these smaller examples which is very fortunate. About halfway through the book, due probably to some sloppy editing, the Futuremedia project gets derailed by missing steps and references to earlier explanations which never made it into the text. Being that I didn't find the Futuremedia project all that interesting, I eventually abandoned working on the book's main project and concentrated on the smaller projects contained in each chapter. These are all complete.
The author's writing style is easy to follow and he tries to explain concepts so non-programmers can grasp them, which is the main reason I stuck with it to the last chapter.
If you are looking to move from the simple coding of buttons, movie clips and basic timeline animation, this book still has some good information to offer.
Informative but a bit sloppy.......2004-07-19
Overall I found this book helpful in taking me to the next level of ActionScript. The main project of the book from beginning to end is the building of a website called Futuremedia. This web page makes use of many cool tricks the author takes you through sep-by-step with pretty good explanations. To teach the reader how to implement these techniques, several smaller coding projects are used to introduce programming concepts that will be used in the more complex Futuremedia project. Each chapter has several of these smaller examples which is very fortunate. About halfway through the book, due probably to some sloppy editing, the Futuremedia project gets derailed by missing steps and references to earlier explanations which never made it into the text. Being that I didn't find the Futuremedia project all that interesting, I eventually abandoned working on the book's main project and concentrated on the smaller projects contained in each chapter. These are all complete.
The author's writing style is easy to follow which is the main reason I stuck with it.
If you are looking to move from simply coding buttons and simple timeline animation, this book still has some good information to offer.
Book Description
If you want to create exciting dynamic web sites that will amaze your online audience, then the Flash platform is a great way to go, with it's many features, including powerful graphical and sound and video capabilities. To really harness the power of Flash though, you need to make use of ActionScript, Flash's coding language, to provide dynamic effects, enable user interaction, and manipulate data. Adobe just made things even more powerful with ActionScript 3.0. They've taken ActionScript and expanded it into a fully-fledged programming language, with full object-oriented capabilities, improved events, sounds and video support, and drawing capabilities, support for regular expressions, and much, much more. Whether you are an aspiring ActionScript developer, or an experienced ActionScript developer who wants to upgrade your knowledge to version 3.0, this book teaches all you need to know to start to harness the power of ActionScript 3.0 using Flash CS3, Flex 2 or Flex 3. It covers all the essential techniques from the ground up, allowing you to get up and running quickly and easily. The sensible layout of the book makes it easy to refer back to techniques when you need to, and there are even reference sections at the back of the book to allow you to look up syntax quickly. With this book as your guide, you'll be creating killer ActionScript powered Flash applications before you know it!
Average customer rating:
- Good book for beginning actionscript auteurs
- One of the better actionscript books
- One of the better actionscript books
- Better already know what you're doing
- Those who "can" can't always teach...
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Foundation ActionScript for Flash MX
Sham Bhangal , and
Ben Renow-Clarke
Manufacturer: Wrox Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 190345073X |
Book Description
One of the biggest compliments paid to a friends of ED book last year was Amazon.com's judgment that "Foundation Actionscript is perhaps one of the finest introductory programming books ever written".
With the release of Flash MX, scripting in Flash has moved from being a desirable asset to an essential skill in the world of web design. It's also become a whole lot more difficult, and the major advances with Flash MX are code based. If you're scared of the idea of code, but even more scared of missing out, this is the book for you.
This is no simple re-write - with the help of friends of ED Flash guru Sham Bhangal, Foundation ActionScript has been re-written from beginning to end, with the addition of substantial new material to reflect the major changes bought about with Flash MX.
If you've never coded in Flash, you're going to want to very soon. This book will make that desire reality, with fully worked examples and a chapter-by-chapter case study that turns into a fully fledged top ActionScript site by the end of the book.
Customer Reviews:
Good book for beginning actionscript auteurs.......2003-03-12
This book is a solid starting point for people interested in making dynamic flash sites with actionscript. It's written in a casual tone, so it's not too dry. However, I do recommend some knowledge of object oriented programming (javascript) because the logic of writing actionscript will be foreign to people who are beginners or have only worked with HTML. However, the lessons are presented in an easy to understand way, with concepts that can be applicable to your own work. There are occasional lapses, such as the author's failure to explain just how a layer mask works, even though it is a necessary step in several lessons (I had to go to macromedia's site for a quick tutorial). Overall, as a relative novice, I have found it helpful and it will be useful as a reference tool after I have completed the lessons.
One of the better actionscript books.......2002-11-15
This is an excellent actionscript book for designers (beginners) who don't like geeky terminology. It leads the reader slowly and the layout is very organized. After you read this book, you'll surely become a well-rounded actionscripter. Compared to other books like Peachpit Actionscript, this book is much better.
One of the better actionscript books.......2002-11-15
This is an excellent actionscript book for designers (beginners) who don't like geeky terminology. It leads the reader slowly and the layout is very organized. After you read this book, you'll surely become a well-rounded actionscripter. Compared to other books like Peachpit Actionscript, this book is much better.
Better already know what you're doing.......2002-10-28
This book is like many others written for those who don't already know Actionscipt--it starts out explaining concepts slowly and then takes giant leaps shortly afterwards. This wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't many wasted hours trying to get script to work only to find that I had stumbled upon yet another error not accounted for on the Friends of Ed errata page. I sent multiple e-mails, one which points out something I'm SURE is an error (and it took me a very long time trying to figure it out) and nothing was done. I had another problem with script I'd typed. I checked over and over to make sure I'd gotten the syntax correct, and I had. Then I cut and pasted the FOE coding that I'd downloaded, and guess what? It didn't work either! But when I looked at the rest of the .FLA I saw that the FOE people used different settings than they used in the book. Seems someone decided that some variables needed some tweaks but failed to put it either in the book or on the errata page. I even postponed reviewing this book so that I could give the FOE people a chance to rectify their goofs. But they didn't.
This book is chatty, but chatty doesn't equate to good instruction. If you want to learn Actionscript and know nothing about it or Javascript already, you're out of luck.
I believe that previous viewers might've written so positively because they didn't follow the book step-by-step as I did. If they had, they would've had problems, too. Either that or I have a different version of the book than they do.
Those who "can" can't always teach..........2002-10-28
Have you ever taken a class from someone who clearly knew the subject forward and backward, but couldn't communicate it to you on your level? This book is a lot like that.
This book is frustrating, at least for a beginner. The authors make the mistake of assuming that writing in a "conversational" style and throwing analogies at you thick and fast are sufficient to instruct a non-programmer or beginner. Instead, they confuse you by "over-explaining" some straightforward ideas, and other times by using needlessly complex examples and exercises that incorporate advanced concepts before the learner is ready; then saying, in effect, "don't worry about that other stuff yet, we were just trying to show you "x". Well, why not come up with an example that just showed us "x" without all that other stuff? Or just give a concise explanation of it?
In my opinion both as an often "naive" learner and as a professional in the field of instructional design, I think the gold standard in teach-yourself computer texts for beginners are the Lynda Weinmann H.O.T. books. Alas, they don't have one for ActionScript.
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