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EBooks » Flash
 Explore the depth and flexibility of Macromedia Flash 8 with Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 8 in 24 Hours. Fundamental topics are presented one-by-one in a series of 24 one-hour lessons that will help you master the basics of Flash. Author Phillip Kerman, an internationally-known Macromedia trainer and multimedia expert, offers you a clearly-written, well-organized introduction to Macromedia Flash 8 without becoming too overwhelming. You will cover such subjects as: * Drawing and Painting Original Art * Using Motion Tween to Animate * Animatng Using Movie Clips * Using Actions to Create Non-Linear Movies * Optimizing a Flash Site * Publishing a Creation Not only will you master the basics of Macromedia Flash 8 with Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 8 in 24 Hours, you will also be better prepared to learn more advanced topics in the future.  Offering guidance in an exercise-oriented format that readers will find helpful, this book is the perfect mix of tutorial and hands-on coding Written by a well-known and well-respected Flash development expert, this code-intensive guide shows readers how to work with objects, write and use various functions, handle dynamic data, and integrate with XML Contains complete coverage of the ActionScript language, including data types, variables, events, and more Addresses important topics such as understanding how code fits into a Flash project and where it goes, working with new screen technology, and scripting for video and sound  With the release of Macromedia Flash 8, Flash is now the most powerful
and widely used client software for the web, and it's the only one that
runs on virtually every browser, on every platform. It also features
ActionScript, a scripting language with great object-oriented support.
As such, Flash is the ideal platform for producing sophisticated
object-oriented web applications. Complex applications demand a solid
understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques,
regardless of the language and platform used, and this book will
provide all you need. Object-Oriented ActionScript For Flash 8
teaches the theory and practice of OOP with ActionScript. You do not
need any extensive prior programming experience, you just need to want
to go beyond the usual Flash interfaces. Authors, and working Flash
developers, Peter Elst and Todd Yard take you through the complete
development cycle of a series of related applications, using numerous
step-by-step instructions. You'll be able to develop highly reusable
applications and services that leverage the dynamic features in Flash. This
book demonstrates professional OOP skills and techniques that are
completely transferable to other programming languages and
technologies, including Inheritance, Polymorphism, managing classes,
component development, consuming web services, and much more. It also
includes some cutting edge ActionScript programming techniques, and
animation and effects classes.  Flash can make fabulous introductions to fancy web sites. High-grade wow factor fills the opening screens. Colors are delicious, typefaces are trendy, and movement is exquisite. Rave music is looping and attitude is everywhere. Each intro is a unique work of art. But they all have one thing in common. Each has a button that says SKIP INTRO. Rarely is gratuitous glitz so clearly labeled. When budgets tighten, webmasters will not skip shopping cart, or skip catalog. But they may skip intro. What's Up? The web is outgrowing its eye-candy phase, and so must Flash. A web site must be pretty to be viable, but it must be highly functional as well. Flash pros can't get by on gee-whiz animation or cool interfaces. They'd better prepare to do some of the heavy lifting on the working web. Flash screens must interface with dynamic content, with back-end databases, with server-based applications, and even with other live users. XML provides a path. Don't Stop! Once you connect your Flash code to the outside world, your scope is unbounded. And so is the list of things to learn. In this book we learn a lot. We begin with Flash and XML. We study networking protocols and PHP server scripting. We learn sockets and SQL and a few fancy XML dialects. We go on to achieve competence in many other related technologies and put them together to build working web systems. Who Are You? If you are creative and technical, this book is for you. Maybe you have a design background. You learn whatever technology you need to realize your vision. This book offers you skills that open fresh new worlds. Let's hope your imagination can keep up. Maybe you have computer science training. You're happy with simple gray buttons. Your art is an elegant code design. You are ready to put Flash to work with all the web technologies you already know. This book was written by authors who approach Flash from both angles. We want it to speak to both engineers and artists, and we struggled (often with each other) to support both perspectives. Why? We wrote this book because it wasn't there when we needed it. Typographic Conventions We have adhered to several conventions in this book. Case Conventions lowerAndUpperCase is used to name variables and functions in ActionScript UpperAndLowerCase labels frames and names symbols, objects and constructors. ALL_UPPER_CASE is used in manifest constants, SQL keywords, PHP globals. Separated_by_underscores is typically used for PHP names. Typesetting Conventions italics indicate names we gave variables, functions, elements, instances, and so on. codefont shows language keywords and expressions. codefont is also used to set off the text output of any program. boldface introduces the first use of an important term. SMALL CAPS are used for pull-down menu options. Slashes show hierarchy. "quotes" are reserved for string literals. These rules are breached occasionally in the book. Sometimes this is for historic reasons, sometimes due to ambiguity and sometimes because it just didn't look right This book is named 50 Fast Flash MX Techniques—it presents 50 relatively simple, exciting Flash MX techniques that you can do quickly. Some of these techniques may take15 to 30 minutes, but many take far less time. They are also easy because all of components are provided for you. You can copy them or add your own art. This book is for anyone who wants to add some great techniques to a Web site in Flash but doesn’t have the time to study Flash in-depth. Although many of the techniques involve considerable programming in ActionScript, Flash’s programming language, you do not need to be a programmer to use the techniques. We have provided ActionScript for you, and you can easily copy and paste it into your own movies. |
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