FLASH: Quick flash book review

[Tom Green]

Have had James Mohler's Graphics, Animation and Interactivity with Flash

4 ( Delmar Thompson Learning) for a couple of weeks now. Interesting

book for the newbie.


Covers a lot of stuff in its 323 pages and many of the explanations are

quite useful for someone new to the app. I did find a couple of the

exercises assumed a working knowledge of the app and a couple of the

steps in the exercises were vague. Still, this is a book rich in

technique and examples that are presented in an easily understandable

method.


As the head of a multimedia department, I am always on the lookout for

books containing lessons or techniques that reinforce what we present in

class. This book is a gold mine for instructors. It is set up as a

series of logical objective-based lessons that take the student from

ground zero to FS commands and actionscripting. Plus each technique has

an accompanying example on the CD which the student can tear into. Being

able to flip a student the book and CD makes life really simple and the

100+ .fla's on the CD gives lots of choice. Mind you why a demo and

discussion of VectaVapourware is included is beyond me.


Now for the bad news. I use a Mac. I teach in labs full of G3's. I work

on a Powerbook. Yet 90% of the instructions are PC based. James, I would

love to right click if I had an extra button. The illustrations in the

book, screen shots, could be a ton larger as well. There are a couple of

spots where he refers to the screen shot and the text in the small shot

is virtually illegible. The Actionscripting section could be beefed up

with more comprehensive explainations of the techniques. It's nice to

get an overview of Actionscripting but to then shoot the student to an

example and expect he or she to figure it out is a bit much. The other

aspect of this section that didn't give me "warm fuzzies" were the

Applied Examples. Instead of handing you the script in the movie, it

would be better if he started with a blank Flash screen with the symbols

and walked you through, step-by-step, how to create the example and do

the code.


The other aspect I didn't like was the huge reliance on Macromedia's

Flash Tutorials in the further study section of each chapter. I don't

know of any instructor that knows his stuff who relies on those

Tutorials. They aren't all that hot and even the specific materials from

the Mothership aren't much better. A list of URL's with specific

tutorials and sites demonstrating the techniques would have been more

useful.


Bottom line? If you are a teacher or new to the app this is a good

reference work. Just don't expect it to unlock the mysteries of

Actionscript or FS commands. If that is what you are looking for, JC's

or Colin's books will most likely fit the bill.






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