By Sham Bhangal
First Edition
June 2004
Pages: 496
Series: Hacks
ISBN 10: 0-596-00645-4 |
ISBN 13: 9780596006457
(Average of 5 Customer Reviews)
This collection offers expert Flash tips and tricks for optimization, creating interesting effects, ActionScript programming, sound and video effects, and much more--and you don't need to be an expert to use them (although you'll certainly look like one). Ranging from practical hacks to the fun and quirky, the book covers Flash MX, Flash MX 2004, and Flash MX Professional 2004. If you want more than your average Flash user, Flash Hacks is for you.
Full Description
- Primitives
- Timelines
- Symbols
- Flash Assets (sound, video, and bitmaps)
- Code hacks
- Events and event handling
- Advanced animation
- UI design hacks
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
Not too detailed, but good!, February 29 2008
The book has a lot of interesting tricks, some of them are very easy and others have a lot of complex and advanced actionScript. It's very balanced in this way.
It is very detailed when it comes to follow the steps operating the program features, It seems to be explained for newbies. And this fact leads to a great contradiction, even though It explains every step of the "practical" way (for example, "To import an image go to Archive> import> import to Library" ), It never explains the codes in this way. You have a complex actionScript line and the book only tells you what it does, but It never teaches you how to use It, how to construct it, what the actionScript elements are for, etc etc etc.
If you want to think over the code to learn how to write and create your own material you need another book because It won't teach you how to understand actionScript. Maybe that's not the purpouse of this book, but I found annoying that It explains the short cuts that are easy to find anywere and It doesn't do the same with the coding part, and I think that's a big shame. I don't know what you want to achieve, but I don't want to copy/paste another people's code that when nothing works you can't fix cause you don't really understand half of it, I need to know about sintaxis, about what
setInterval (); is used for and why it's being used in the example in particularly. If you don't want that, buy It because the book is good.Great Book for a number of reasons..., February 07 2007
Flash Hacks from O'Reilly is a great book that every Flash Designer or Developer should have in their library. The "get-to-the-point" style of the Hacks series is also very useful when you have a deadline fast approaching. There are 100 "hacks" in this book that, for the most part, are projects that can be used in your everyday Flash development.
First the bad news:
BWhile this book is full of great project that touch the surface of most problems, I found that the book could have used more in-depth examples. I also wanted a full chapter on Flash Components, which was not really covered at all. Flash is now the goto format for Rich Internet Applications because of the player market penetration, and with the need to regularly utilize components, it would have been nice to seem more information on the subject.
Now for the good news:
I choose this book mainly for the Sound and Browser Integration chapters, but I was pleasantly suprised to find more than a handful of topics that helped me develop better applications. I especially liked the chapter on Optimization along with the Color Effects chapter. Both of these chapters provided tid-bits of information that were directly related to a few projects I was working on.
Conclusion:
While there is room for improvement, I would highly recommend this book, or the next version that I assume will be coming out shortly. For the begining and intermediate Flash Developer, the hacks in this book will help you build better user experiences for your clients.
Book Rating: 8.5 / 10
Flash Hacks - wealth of information, April 12 2006
If you are like me and have a good solid base in the understanding of Flash actionscript. You often find yourself looking for books that go above and beyond basic training manuals.
This book is a refreshing look at what you can do with Flash and how to integate it with other forms of media. It opens your mind to new possibilities and gets your creative juices flowing. Best of all it reads like a novel - which is important, because sometimes training manuals can be a bit oppressive.
Very impressive!
Thank you Sham Bhangal! By the way, please make a Flash Hacks II. PLEASE!
Excellent resource!, July 29 2005
Sham Bhangal is undoutedly the most generous writer in the web development/design realm. I've been reading his books for awhile, but his Flash Hacks rises to the top. His style is irreverent, yet immensely helpful, and his code is rock-solid. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!
Highly reccomended!, January 15 2005
Flash Hacks was a very pleasant surprise. I have been aware of Sham's work for quite some time now, and purchased this book on impulse at the local book store. I was not dissapointed! It is full of excellent tips- most of which I have never seen anywhere else!! Kudos to Sham, and a guarantee that his future books will be rated as "must gets"!
Media reviews
"Although the book, like Flash itself, is not for the unmotivated, there really is something here for everyone from beginner to veteran. If you are tempted by the promise of shiny new tricks and sweet insider workarounds then you can eagerly and easily search these pages for tasty snacks to digest now and save the heavier helpings for later...I'm a long–time fan of the seriously usable content and simple direct presentation style of O'Reilly technical reference manuals. This book ventures into more creative realms than their usual titles but stays true to form."
-- Philip High, Digital Media Artists Group (dmag)
"The majority of the material covered in this book you won't find anywhere else and you can actually apply the techniques to real world projects. Its one of the few Flash books that you'll actually reach for when you are working and not just taking a study break."
--Brian Delaney, NSMUG (Nova Scotia Macromedia User Group), June 2005
"Might as well get used to it; Flash is the most popular multimedia application for Web use today. It might seem overwhelming at first, but give this book a try before you toss Flash aside. Flash Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools offers ideas to help you become comfortable with the creative possibilities of this amazing program...Tips vary in difficulty, but step-by-step instructions make these projects appear less daunting. Keep in mind, too, that most of the tips were gleaned from the Flash online community, where sharing techniques and tricks is commonplace. They're not only great examples of Flash's capability; they're tested and tried."
--Bonnie Bruno, Wonderkorner.com, May 2005
"Designers and scripters who want more than the average Flash user will find this an essential guide to creating and using shortcuts, using Flash for unusual, fun applications, and achieving the most from Internet Applications. Flash Hacks covers Flazh MX, MX2004, and MX Professional 2004 as well as ActionScript 2.0, so it's got the latest tools and techniques."
--Bookwatch, October 2004
