I’ve been messing around with Flash 5 for a while (unfortunately I haven’t been able to make the jump to mx because of my love of Flash 5), and I was wondering for those of you who do buy books on Flash design/actionscripting, which books are decent?
I’ve been doing some research, and recently I bought Macromedia Flash Super Samurai. It’s ok and has some good theory, so I’m considering buying another one… and currently my eyes have been resting the New Masters of Flash (not the 2002 edition). Seems like it covers a lot of well thought out sites with good effects.
Mainly the kind of books I’m moreso interested in are the books that cover how to do interesting (not tired and overused) effects… whether it be for navigation, text or whatever.
If you guys have some input on which books are really good for an intermediate Flash 5 user with some good actionscripting skills, I’d appreciate it.
Look at ActionScripting in Flash written by Phillip Kerman and published by Sams. Another good book I am looking at is Flash Site Workshop written by Ken Milburn and Oncall interactive. I also think there are plenty of books worth looking at at Sams Publishing. They might have a good selection. I hope that helps you out.
Second, I forgot to mention that I had a few other flash books already besides the super samurai one: I have actionscripting in flash by Kerman, and also the flash 5 dynamic content studio.
Third, I saw on the main page of Kirupa that he has a book published, but it was for frontpage. I’m wondering with all that Kirupa knows, why hasn’t he published a book solely on Flash? The man would make a killing
In my opinion, nothing really compares to ActionScript : The Definitive Guide by by Colin Moock. It’s not your average tutorials book… rather it’s a great referrence that teaches you the fundamentals so you can develop and script in Flash entirely from scratch on your own.
If you’re looking for crazy effects, look at Flash Math Creativity, it’s just great. Some scripts are really tough, but it’s really amazing. Check sample here http://www.friendsofed.com/fmc/
I don’t like Flash Site Workshop, coz all it does is deliver a full site (with some good features, yes, but…) and explains how to customize that a bit…not very instructive.
The Moock book is still very best, but should definitively be updated to MX.
The two I prefered so far are Flash 5 Actionscript Studio and PHP for Flash, both by FOED; also Flash MX upgrade essentials if you ever make the jump to MX, to get a quick overview of all the new features.
Too many books out there…friend of mine has the New Masters ones, it’s quite heavy stuff, some Director scripts in there too, I’d go for something more digestive…
Search the net (Flashkit) for cool flas and work on these, it’s as instructive, and more hands-on than reading a book (me saying that…i love reading and have 15 Flash books…haha)
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Server-Side Flash is another good one to have in your permanent collection. It wouldn’t hurt to hang out for hours at the bookstore reading these too… it saves a lot of cash and it’s kind of fun!
i got ActionScript : The Definitive Guide and its a pretty good referance…not too many aplied examples though. i just got Foundation Actionscript for Flash MX by Friends of Ed and its pretty good for beginners to flash actionscript. Flash Math Creativity by friends of Ed is awsome…you have to see it too beleive the effects…probably all done in actionscript…its amazing what they can do…
