Through five releases of Macromedia’s industry-standard Web graphics software program, James Mohler has become the indispensable resource for those looking to master the power of Flash. Flash:8 Graphics, Animation & Interactivity delivers Mohler’s widely praised hands-on approach to learning for the newest version of Macromedia® Flash. Exercises and examples in the book, and the on back-of-the book CD, combined with step-by-step explanations, provide the best of both worlds-not just telling you how flash works, but showing you as well. For those new to flash, there are plenty of exercises designed to quickly get users up to speed quickly. Intermediate and advanced Flash users will find new exercises that demonstrate the latest features of version 8 as well as a valuable series of examples that illustrate some of the more complex elements of the software. The book features chapters on graphic techniques, bitmap graphic integration, typography and text, symbols, libraries, sound, animation, interactive techniques-plus an essential introduction to Flash’s internal scripting language, Action Script.

Through five releases of Macromedia?s industry-standard Web graphics software program, James Mohler has become the indispensable resource for those looking to master the power of Flash. Flash 8: Graphics, Animation & Interactivity delivers Mohler?s widely praised hands-on approach to learning for the newest version of Macromedia® Flash. Exercises and examples in the book, and on the back-of-book CD, combined with step-by-step explanations, provide the best of both worlds?not just telling you how Flash works, but showing you how as well. For those new to Flash, there are plenty of exercises designed to quickly get users up to speed quickly. Intermediate and advanced Flash users will find new exercises that demonstrate the latest features of version 8 as well as a valuable series of examples that illustrate some of the more complex elements of the software. The book features chapters on graphic techniques, bitmap graphic integration, typography and text, symbols, libraries, sound, animation, interactive techniques?plus an essential introduction to Flash?s internal scripting language, ActionScript.

Flash?: Graphics, Animation & Interactivity provides a hands-on approach to learning the next version of Macromedia® Flash. Designed to help you understand in detail how Flash works, the exercises and examples contained on the CD, when combined with the written material, provide the best of both worlds, not just telling you how, but showing you as well. For the beginner, there are plenty of exercises that are designed to get you up to speed quickly while intermediate to advanced Flash users will find new exercises that demonstrate the latest features, as well as some complex examples worth digesting. The book includes chapters on graphic techniques, bitmap graphic integration, typography and text, symbols, libraries, sound, animation, interactive techniques, as well as Flash?s internal scripting language, ActionScript.

Great book for experienced software users trying to pick up Flash
After working through many "do something right now" tutorials - I felt like I could butcher my way through simple Flash projects and action script, but wasn’t really using the software the way it was designed to be used.

I think this book is an ideal read if you’ve been through Flash tutorials that show you how to use the program, but don’t walk you through an overview from top to bottom, explaining the idiosyncrasies, gotchas and tips along the way. While the lessons are not particularly project oriented (like Classroom in a book style), you get a framework for continued learning.

For a programmer / experienced software user who wants to learn Flash, I would recommend reading this book and finding tutorials online to go in deep on areas relevant to your specific project.

Worst software book ever
I had the misfortune to buy this book for an online class on VR. We were supposed to work our way through the book chapter by chapter, as we took the class online. Admittedly, the online class did not support the flash part of the instruction in any way.

Having said that, I found this book to be the worst book ever for learning a software. The progression of the lessons was clunky and the files that were included as a support for each lesson were hard to use and sometimes impossible to understand. Instead of giving projects to work on, the book focused on explaining each and every button and menu item. One problem with this was a button or pallett or menu item would be mentioned in the text with no graphic to show where to find it. Often you could get lost in trying to find what the heck was being discussed. In fact, the book was very short on graphics, period, which is bad since the program itself is very visual.

I would never recommned this book to anyone who wants to learn flash.