Since its introduction in 1996, Macromedia Flash has become the standard for delivering high impact, vector-based graphics to the Web. Flash is deceptively simple at first, yet has great depth and flexibility. Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 5 in 24 Hours offers a clearly written, well-organized introduction to this powerful product, and gives the beginner an overview of the entire package, without becoming too overwhelming. A new version of Flash is expected to be released in the 1st quarter of 2002. It will have user interface improvements, several new features, and extensive improvements to existing features.

Since its introduction in 1996, Macromedia Flash has become the standard for delivering high impact, vector-based graphics to the Web. Flash is deceptively simple at first, yet has great depth and flexibility.

Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash 5 in 24 Hours offers a clearly written, well-organized introduction to this powerful product, and gives the beginner an overview of the entire package, without becoming too overwhelming.

A new version of Flash is expected to be released in the 1st quarter of 2002. It will have user interface improvements, several new features, and extensive improvements to existing features.

One of the most popular and best-selling Flash tutorials on the market - updated and revised to cover the latest version of Macromedia Flash. Readers love the book’s easy-to-read, well-organized style. Gives the beginner a thorough grounding in the basics of a complicated yet very important Web development technology. Phillip Kerman is a well-known trainer, writer, and developer with years of experience teaching Flash to beginners. Since its introduction in 1996, Macromedia Flash has become the standard for delivering high impact, vector-based graphics to the Web. Flash is deceptively simple at first, yet has great depth and flexibility. Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash MX in 24 Hours offers a clearly written, well-organized introduction to this powerful product, and gives the beginner an overview of the entire package, without becoming too overwhelming. Phillip Kerman is internationally recognized expert on the use of the Web and multimedia for training and entertainment purposes. He frequently presents at Macromedia User Conferences, contributes articles to Macromedia User Journal, and he has taught Flash and other Macromedia authoring tools in workshops around the world. In addition to showing others how to create multimedia, Kerman has had plenty of opportunities to get his hands dirty in programming. He programmed the all-Flash Web site www.m-three.com for Paris France, Inc., which was included in both Communication Arts Interactive Design Annual and the British Design & Art Direction Annual.

Strangefruit
I own THREE other Flash books AND took a 2 Day course a year ago, and this book has taught me more than all the others combined in my first day of use. Well written, easy to follow, the lessons are in a LOGICAL order that make sense to someone who does not know Flash. Terrific book if you need to learn Flash. I wish I had found it before I wasted time and money on the other books and the course! You won’t waste your money with this one. I wish Adobe would hire this guy...he understands Flash and knows how to explain it.

Sam’s in the classroom
Hi, I’m using this textbook in a classroom with some Grade 10 students, and to teach myself Flash as well. I find the book good over all, but some of the exercises have been difficult.The instructions don’t work as written sometimes, and I have to ’feel around’ the program to figure out what I’m supposed to do to get the expected result. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m not understanding things clearly, or if I have a slightly different version of Flash. The book is for Flash MX 2004 and I have Flash MX 2004 professional. I don’t know if that would make a difference. The book is a comprehensive introduction broken into manageable lessons. The kids find the exercises fairly manageable, but the lessons in between the exercises are written at a bit of a high reading level for them.

Great launching pad...
Kerman pretty much hit it on the head for me to get started authoring computer-based training in Flash. He explains things concisely and succinctly.

Pretty much a "to the point" kind of tutorial book. Although, it would have been nice to have a companion CD, Kerman has placed many of the excercises on a website for book owners. He has also been extremely accessible.

Pretty Good until you get to the actionscripting part
I was going through this book fairly well untilllllllllll.......... I came to the actionscripting chapters. Some work fine but I kept coming to exercises where I kept saying what the *#&^ am I doing wrong! I thought the big problem was I has flash mx instead of flash mx 2004, I guess I was wrong. As I read the other users reviews I discovered there are a lot of errors. I would have recommended this book but not anymore. Don’t get this book unless you want to use it as a target from frustration.

Oh and you cannot get the downloads to work.

Good if you get it from the local Library for free
Useful book, but not ereror checked thoroughly and not consistent and clear in its presentation. Books dealing with action script and code must be concise and thoroughly tested. This book was not. Glad I didn’t pay for it.

Too Much Text and Not Enough Tasks
I do not recommend this book. It has page upon page of theory and not nearly enough step-by-step instruction. And the author continually refers the reader to examples that supposedly come with the Flash software but are nowhere to be found. This leads to frustration and confusion about what he’s talking about. I’m sure there are better books out there.

Too Bad the Exercises Don’t Always Work As Described...
The Bible says that to God, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years a day... Well, some places in Kerman’s book can assume the same analogy. Or maybe I’m just super dense in my old age.

Overall, the book is clearly written, but for me not enough of the "Next we want to do this because... and this is how we do it:

1. ...

2. ...

etc.

I found that as long as I do exactly what the book says to do, things generally work as the book says they will.

Generally.

The latest problem I’ve found is the task found on page 323. In step 3, I never got the expected results. Without the expected results, it is futile to continue an exercise.

There were other such incidents in the book, which is why I give it a 3-star rating. After all, what good are instructions if they don’t work???

Too Bad the Exercises Don’t Always Work As Described...
Sorry Phil, no cigar.

(By the way, I couldn’t figure out how to change the initial 3-star rating to a 2-star rating. I give this book 2 stars, not 3.

While the first few parts seem to work, this book has too many errors to make it a reliable source for somebody wanting to learn. And why anybody would buy this book, if not to learn, is beyond me. Because of many problems, the best way to use this book is not to use it at all.

Harsh? Not really. I mean, what good is a tutorial when its script examples contain errors that prevent the script from running?

For example, on page 357, paragraph 6 example contains a colon where a semicolon should be. The colon prevents that script from working. But that’s okay, because the entire "Try it Yourself" exercise on pages 356 and 357 doesn’t work either.

Need another example? Try the task on page 323. Try as did, I never got the expected results in step 3, and so could not continue the exercise.

As a beginner, I spent most of my time trying to figure out if I did something wrong or if the book is wrong. I have better uses for my time than to proof somebody else’s writing. Each problem in a tutorial reduces its credibility until the reader reaches the point of "what’s the use - nothing seems to work as promised" and from that point on, the book is useless.

Over the last 25 years, I’ve found that Sam’s books are all on the same par for accuracy. Don’t trust ’em. This book is a good example. Kerman has $30 of my money and for that my ulcer has grown another millimeter.

This is a GREAT book!
I came to this experience with zero knowledge of Flash and was making little movies by Hour 2 of the book. It really does a great job of walking you through each part of Flash and building small tasks into large ones. I am very pleased.

On a side note, if you want to learn how to make games or other interactive programs, this is NOT the book for you.

Absolutely Fabulous!
I’ve reviewed various books for learning Macromedia Flash MX 2004. This is the best. Along with this is Flash MX 2004 at Your Fingertips: Get In, Get Out, Get Exactly What You Need". They are both wonderful and each have their own purpose. I started with Sams Teach Yourself Macromedia Flash MX 2004 in 24 Hours and use "...At Your Fingertips..." for an excellent reference guide. I recommend both books.

Be careful.. not as good as some have claimed
First off, let me say the lessons in this book are pretty good. Assuming you can get them to work.. (you’ll see why I only gave this 1 star).

For many of the lessons, you have to go to the author’s website to download files to complete the lesson. I’ve only been able to do that once - the other times the site was down! Why on earth would the author do this instead of just providing a CD? I would have gladly paid an extra $1 to prevent this downloading nightmare.

So, assuming you can get the files you need downloaded from the author’s website, you can do the lessons. They’re way too wordy though, and not nearly as good as some other books I’ve used. Lots of extraneous information that you don’t even need. If it wasn’t for the annoying download problem, I’d give this book 3 stars, no more.

My advice.. look for something else.

Great Teacher Great Program
This book was written by somebody that knows how to relate to students. He has the ability to stay ahead of your questions with the right progressive information and Tasks/Tutorials. His other talent is to keep you interested in reading more material and all with a down to earth simplicity and to the point practicality and why not, and accasional and proper sense of humor. I bought two other books on the subject and this bits them by far in all respects.

Be careful!!!
If you are interested in buying the ebook be aware that is not the same book. The ebook is for flash mx not for flash mx 2004. Amazon shouldn’t have this link here it’s confusing.

a wonderful resource
his book exceeds the Sam’s Publishing tradition of being the gold standard in Teach Yourself books. Kerman’s delivery and expertise makes it incredibly easy to follow along with the lessons and within hours of starting the book, I had produced a Flash intro page for a client’s website that wowed them!

I can’t wait to get deeper into the book and start really exploring Flash’s depths.

Fantastic
I’ve read quite a few books on flash and this book beats them all. Whether you are just beginning.. or know a bit about flash.. this book is perfect for you


Just a quick question for Phillip K.
Would it be possible for you to post a few of your flash works so that some of the people that are debating buying the book could see what you have done?

author comments
Just a quick note regarding the review from Australia. (Disclosure: I’m the author of this book.) This book comes in editions for Flash 5, Flash MX, and Flash MX 2004. It’s doubly confusing because Amazon.com combines the reviews for the MX and the MX 2004 version. In any event, Macromedia updates their software and each time I revise this book to match the current version. If you purchase the OLD MX version of the book you’ll find several discrepancies when using the NEW version of the software--MX 2004 (in which case, you can find my email in the book and I’ll provide some limited help). Anyway, any bookstore will exchange the book if you get the wrong one. But, yes, you must get the edition that matches your software or you will likely become frustrated. I wish the reader from Australia will consider exchanging the book for the correct edition and then see if the book lives up to their expectations.