Are you already up to speed on the fundamentals of Flash? Do you know how create simple animations and write elementary ActionScript? If so, you’re ready to move beyond the basics.

Macromedia Flash 8 Beyond the Basics is all about stepping to that next level. This book expands your skill set and shows you how to integrate those skills with advanced ActionScript. Through a series of carefully developed, step-by-step exercises and demo movies, you’ll learn how to build a professional, interactive Web site—using source files and designs supplied on the book’s CD-ROM. Along the way, you’ll learn about the new Flash 8 features: the improved text tool, new text rendering engine, new graphic filters, and more.

50+ Step-by-Step Tutorials:
•    Format dynamically loaded text using HTML, CSS, and nested images
•    Create an ActionScript-driven menu
•    Build a preloader with MovieClipLoader class
•    Add a progressively downloading, multi-track MP3 player
•    Create a video player that allows users to control playback
•    Build a slideshow that loads images and text dynamically
•    Utilize components to create a feedback form
•    Create a Flash plug-in detector

Worth the price - and then some!
This is the first product I’ve written a review on - but after completing the book and its projects I had to. If you want to learn both Flash 8 and Action Script 2.0, this book is what you are after. Everything is explained throughout the book - the author does not take anything for granted. I would say this is for the Beginner Plus - it explains all the steps, but you will learn key aspects of Action Script as you progress. The Action Script you will learn is very useful, and most importantly, transfers to your own projects. My background is two semesters using Flash and action script, and I wish I had this book at the beginning of the first semester. I saw some comments there were errors in the book - I beg to differ. Every error message I received was my own fault - mostly through mis-typing the script. However, with a little effort, and backtracking, I figured out my error and fixed it. To sum up, at the end of the book, everything worked the way it was supposed to!

Definitely worth the money
I’m not one to write reviews. But I was compelled to take the time to do this. As someone Brand new to flash, I picked this book up and was actually having Fun in no time! What I thought would be tedious reading turned out to be humerous, extremely accurate, and user-friendly information, for someone like me very unfamiliar with the program. My faith in self education has been lifted even higher.

Teaches by example and works great!
I wasn’t planning on reviewing any of my school books on here. This was a great school book though so I couldn’t resist.

I got this book for a course that I was taking on Flash. It is a great book and I am happy the teacher recommended it.

The chapters are arranged in easy to follow exercises that teach all the basics of Flash. I really liked this style of teaching because it forces you to open up Flash and do the exercises. Much more useful than a book that you just sit and read.

The author of the book is also very good about telling you multiple ways of doing something. In the course of the exercises there are little colored boxes that will talk about how you could have done the above action this way or this way or this way. The fact that these tips are usually separate is nice if you don’t care and want to skip the additional information.

So far I am about 3/4 the way through the course and the book and have been very happy with it. A great book; especially for a newbie that doesn’t have any programming background.

got the job done!
I had to learn flash and create a site quick - and this book had everything I needed - thanks!

Excellent
Excellent for beginners - easy to follow step by step format.Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Beyond the Basics Hands-On Training

Good tutorial and well structured
I believe this book taught me quite a lot. The tutorial guides you through one project from beginning to end, which also highlights the challenges in the planning phase. It may appear difficult at the beginning (and it is) but Shane explains the contents in an excellent way that makes you want to learn more. The book is definitely for an intermediate to advanced FLASH developer, who have a good grasp of actionscript. If you are new to actionscript this book is definitely NOT for you. Having said that, this book was worth it for me.

Easy to Understand
This book does a great job of explaining ActionScript techniques. It seemed like every time a question popped into my head, I found the answer right away in the next paragraph. The author explains things in a way that everyone can understand.

The only problem I had with the book was that the explanations got a little too repetitive sometimes. I think they over-explained things, but I suppose they just wanted to make sure everyone understood it.

Basically Intermediate, Slightly Beyond
Add this one to your library, folks!

This book totally lives up to it’s title. It is a solid resource for getting things done with Flash. From concept to finshed product, this books walks you through the proper way to accomplish intermediate-level tasks in a straight forward manner. The step-by-step instructions are some of the best I’ve seen. And I’ve seen a lot.

It really is best to have some basic knowledge of Flash and to understand the terms and concepts used, but the beginner will also gain a lot from this book. (if they have a glossary nearby and are willing to do some work). The novice, once going through the material, will be a proud intermediate. There also a few advanced techniques touched upon.

For working designers using Flash this is a tremendously useful book. The entire book is a walk-through of building a website that has many features that will come up in design and development: The design process, fonts, integrating your tools, organization and architecture of your project, loading data from text files with LoadVars, formatting text with textFormat class, building slideshows, preloaders, forms, video and audio players, and navigation menus.

And the CD of files and videos are very well-done and extremely helpful.

Basically Intermediate, Slightly Beyond
Add this one to your library, folks!



This book totally lives up to it’s title. It is a solid resource for getting things done with Flash. From concept to finshed product, this books walks you through the proper way to accomplish intermediate-level tasks in a straight forward manner. The step-by-step instructions are some of the best I’ve seen. And I’ve seen a lot.



It really is best to have some basic knowledge of Flash and to understand the terms and concepts used, but the beginner will also gain a lot from this book. (if they have a glossary nearby and are willing to do some work). The novice, once going through the material, will be a proud intermediate. There also a few advanced techniques touched upon.



For working designers using Flash this is a tremendously useful book. The entire book is a walk-through of building a website that has many features that will come up in design and development: The design process, fonts, integrating your tools, organization and architecture of your project, loading data from text files with LoadVars, formatting text with textFormat class, building slideshows, preloaders, forms, video and audio players, and navigation menus.



And the CD of files and videos are very well-done and extremely helpful.

HOT Books are Hot
The Flash 8 Hands-On-Training book is written in a way anyone should be able to comprehend, retain and use the lessons learned to do what they wish with Flash. I have purchased several of the HOT books, and have not been disappointed with any. A must buy!

Great for Beginners/Bad for Reference
I bought this book because I was going to a fast paced training course and I needed some "prep work" to insure that I didn’t get lost in the class. This book is designed with the very basic principles of training, tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you just told them. So yes, it is going to repeat items such as shortcuts and the like. However it is also going to provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to do use some of the advanced features of Flash while also providing that "hand on" approach that us programmers love. When was the last time you read a programming book that didn’t have instructions and then felt you could jump right in and program?

Please note that this book is not a replacement for proper training, especially if you wish to really be a wiz at it; however, it will give you the foundation you need to get over the mechanics of using the application.

What’s different?
I have the Flash MX 2004 Beyond the Basics and have just purchased the Flash 8 Beyond the Basics. Is this the same book and are there any differences? I thumbed through one of the chapters and it was the same.

thanks
charlie-imac

Exactly what basics is this book beyond?!
Aside from the ridiculously unproductive pace and tone of the book, there’s nothing in it that isn’t in Flash’s included Help files.

That said, it might be good for you if you consider things like the following to be ’Beyond the Basics’, or maybe even less than completely annoying:

"Make sure to type a line break between ’if(...){’ and the closed curly brace below it. This gives you a line break where you can start typing some actions." - ’Beyond the Basics’? And it’s repeated in nearly every chapter of the book, with something new in place of ’if(...){’.

"You will also assign instance names to a few symbols so, as you begin to write the ActionScript to make this whole thing work, you’ll be all set to start scripting." - As I start scripting, I’ll be all set to start scripting?

The book also explains, dozens of times, that to create a new line, you must press Enter on a PC and Return on a Mac. We get it, Shane.

I’ll stop ranting - this book’s wasted enough of my time.

Don’t waste your time and money. I literally threw the book across the room in disgust.

F*** you, Shane Rebenschied.

Great for Professionals with Flash Experience
I highly recommend this book if you, like myself, are a professional in the media industry with experience in Flash. While the ’newbie’ will benefit from this book, I find that knowing the terms, interface and minimal Actionscript syntax are very useful to understanding and succeeding with the tutorials in this book.

I searched high and low for this type of resource - a book which explains step by step how to do advanced actions in Flash utilizing semi-advanced explanations. In other words, the tutorials are written for both the newbie and intermediate user to understand. You don’t have to be a developer to ’get’ what the author is saying. Whoo-hoo!

Once I complete the exercises in this book, I am confident that I will be able to further my studies with more advanced Actionscript tutorials.

Best Flash book I ever bought!
I must have over $1000 of Flash books since Flash 5. This book, by Shane Rebenschied, is by far the best I’ve experienced. I liked the fact that he includes much discussion about why one is performing a task one way as opposed to doing it another way... Shane shows you the correct, professional way. I also like the fact that the exact directions to follow in the tutorial are clearly numbered, often bold and stand out from the basic discussion. I am now going through for the second time and not reading the discussion but just doing another couple sites to get practice with these new techniques and ideas. They make sense because you change things in one place, not open every button timeline. You load one movie into another, allowing for download and cache ahead of time, for all your graphics and fonts you will use in the site. The user’s computer is not constantly downloading the same items over and over as you move from one html page to another... you stay on the same one and load one SWF file after another into a master SWF file on the same html page.
If you already know a good deal about Flash or enough to get you in trouble, this Shane Rebenschied book is for you! I hope he writes the next level soon. The added videos are fantastic and very helpful.

A hands-on training program which is the next best thing to the classroom itself
So you have the basics of Macromedia Flash Professional 8 down and want to move to the next level of expertise - but how? Begin with Shane Rebenschied’s tutorial, which packs learning exercises and training videos under one cover for maximum results. From learning how to create a video players that allows users to control playback features to creating a Flash plug-in detector and working with Photoshop and other programs for best integration of features, plenty of technical examples and screen shots permeate a hands-on training program which is the next best thing to the classroom itself.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

Tutorials, exercises, training videos and more
The Flash Professional 8 Beyond The Basics for Shane Rebenchied is a practice book that includes some useful tutorial for both Flash designers and developers. About 50 step-by-step tutorials cover many needed techniques to create a professional Flash application. Such as, formatting dynamically loaded text using HTML, CSS and nested images, building preloader with the MovieClipLoader class, adding a progressively downloading multi-track MP3 player and using component to create a feed back form.

For the first time I looked at the book index, I felt like the tutorials are not very well organized, but with another deep look, I realized that the tutorials are pinpoint the problems you may face when creating a Flash application in a professional way.

The book also includes a CD-ROM with exercises and training videos.

Beyond the Basics is a Good Name for This Book
Beyond the Basics is a good name for this book because the author assumes that you have a basic knowledge of Flash and when you have finished the book, you will have mastered some of the intermediate level Flash features. The author, Shane Rebenschied, takes a modular approach to Flash and ActionScript. In each chapter, you will create a modular component that performs a specific task and then a master Flash file that acts as a controller for these modules. The purpose of this is to keep the file size and download time for your Flash site to a minimum and to make it easier to maintain. Throughout the book, the author uses a working sample website as a teaching aid.

Rebenschied begins by discussing flowcharts, storyboards and the construction process you will use throughout the book and how the master file and shared asset library work. Then you work on components that will run the dynamic parts of the website. You will learn how to use the LoadVars class and to dynamically load external text, in-line animations, Flash SWF and FLV files. You will also learn about the TextField.StyleSheet class, the TextFormat class and how to use HTML and CSS with Flash and web forms. He also discusses how CGI works to process your web form on the server.

Then, you will learn about the MovieClipLoader class and how to use ActionScript to control Flash interface components such as a dynamically loaded slide-show, MP3 player and streaming video player. Finally, you will build a Flash plug-in detector and preloader.

The CD contains exercise files and video tutorials that supplement the book. You also get a 24 hour free pass to the Online Training Library at Lynda.com.

Shane Rebenschied is a freelance illustrator and Flash consultant. He has written Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 and Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Beyond the Basics Hands-on Training. He is also part of the video-based training at Lynda.com.

Excellent beginning actionscript
If you have an understanding of Flash Design, but need help getting into
actionscript functions and event handlers, this is a good book for you.
I bought the book because I needed help creating a simple email form,
which this book has a lengthy chapter on. The author is very thorough
with explaining how the actionscript works logistically, and obviously not
a fan of Flash Animation. It took me awhile to grasp some of the concepts
because I was so used to designing with a non-actionscript approach.My only complaint is that the book went by to quick, and wanted to see more on
controlling movie clips, and HTML integration.

Good Book - Needs Updates
I needed a book like this where every exercise is just a little beyond my level of expertise. Highlights: 1) thorough explanations of loading movies and variables, 2) a great chapter on building a concise preloader. I did, however, find a flaw in the Actionscript code for the chapter on building an MP3 player. When I attempted to contact the author and the publisher I was told that there was nothing wrong with the code. After having other people test the code on various computers we all found the same thing. I’m wondering how the author missed such an obvious bug in his code and whether there are more less-obvious bugs elsewhere. I don’t think any of this would be a problem if the author and Lynda.com would maintain some sort of code update of known bugs in their code.

Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Beyond the Basics Hands-On Training
Excellent, informative, well written and easy to understand.

Excellent, as good as it gets
I can’t say enough about the quality of this fine book. EVERYTHING works as it should and equally important, the lessons and explanations are extremely well thought out, concise and even entertaining. This is a very carefully constructed book, clearly written by a very good teacher and thoroughly tested for accuracy AND usability. This is in sharp contrast to the vast majority of Flash, Dreamweaver etc. books on the market.

Bravo to Shane Rebenschied and Lynda.com for publishing an excellent intermediate/advanced book on Flash.

MovieClipLoader is Coolio !
This is my first purchase of a Lynda.com H.O.T series and it certainly wil not be my last. Author Shane did an excellent job instructing the process of development and implementation of a functional Flash website. The assets are nicely done and Shane is great at balancing thorough explanations of what you are about to build, motivations to the approach, and mechanics of the steps and code involved. I consider myself an advanced Flash user but purchased this book when I noticed that several topics that I had neglected were covered: Shared libraries, external CSS, and MovieClipLoader.

The MovieClipLoader coverage and it’s event handling advantages place much greater capabilities in readers hands and at the intermediate rather than advanced level. This is due to the projects, the explanations, and the discussion of the rationale.

ActionScript is strictly typed throughout the book although the functions, curiously, are not. External dynamic data is emphasized and although the solutions are not always the most efficient, comprehension is the focus. I also thought that supplying a few Quicktime movies as additional walkthroughs to a few more advanced topics was an interesting solution.

I recommend the book for those hungry for additional Flash knowledge. The design of the book (all color screen caps) and the author’s friendly, enthusiastic writing style was engaging. Good procedure oriented projects.