Book Club

I thought this book was GREAT! The lessons were easy to understand and follow, and made learning Flash fun. The author does a good job explaining the program features and the Flash “terminology”. Each lesson covers a new topic, but also builds on the topics in the previous lessons. Many times I found myself just saying “wow” when I ran the animations and watched them work. Another plus for me was that the subject matter for the lessons was snowboarding. This may be a minor point for some, but I find training more enjoyable if the lessons deal with a subject that I’m actually interested in.

This book is an excellent introduction to the program. Some of the topics covered in the book are: drawing, masks, symbols, animation, basic ActionScripting, working with text, sound and video. I really liked the layout of the book with the detailed screen shots and step-by-step instructions. Each section includes many helpful “tips” about the program features. Another plus about the book is that it comes with a cd with all the lesson files and some Quick Time movies on the lesson topics.

I’ll keep “Macromedia Flash MX Hands-On-Training” near my pc as a handy reference book as I start creating my own Flash animations. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn Flash MX.

Review by: Kathy Senecal
March 1, 2004