Custom Search
Cool Stuff To Own
 Our Picks  Baby  Books  Cameras  Computers  DVD  Electronics  Music  Software  Tools  Toys  Video Games 
 Kitchen  Outdoor  Apparel  Office Products  Food  Health & Personal Care  Jewelry  Beauty  Sporting Goods 
New!  Release Dates   Collectibles   Top 10   How To Guides 

Search



Menu
Main
Books
CD
DVD
 Action
 Anime
 Children
 Comedy
High Tech Toys
Toys
 Star Wars
 WWE
Video Games
 GameCube
 Playstation (PSOne)
 Playstation 2 (PS2)

E-mail This Page

ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

by Colin Moock


See larger picture

List Price: $54.95
Our Price: $37.08
You Save: $17.87 (33%)

Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
on orders over $25. See details

Click here for more information

Looking for a deal?
Used and new starting at $0.01

Exclusive Satisfaction Rating: 90% Based on 54 reviews.

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Publication Date: December 19, 2002
Author: Colin Moock
Package Dimensions (in inches): 1.7 x 9 x 7
Package Weight: 3 pounds
Audio Tracks/Subtitles: English (Unknown), English (Original Language), English (Published)

Other Details

Dewey Decimal Number: 006.696
EAN: 9780596003968
Edition: 2
ISBN: 059600396X
Manufacturer: O'Reilly Media
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 1104
UPC: 636920003960


Editorial/Description:

Product Description: Updated to cover Flash MX, the newest version of Macromedia Flash, ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition is the one book no serious Flash developer should be without. Author Colin Moock, one of the most universally respected developers in the Flash community, has added hundreds of new code examples to show new Flash MX techniques in the real world: how to draw circles, save data to disk, convert arrays to onscreen tables, create reusable components, and preload variables, XML, and sounds. The book's language reference alone has nearly doubled from the first edition, with more than 250 new classes, objects, methods, and properties. You'll find exhaustive coverage of dozens of undocumented, under-documented, and mis-documented features. Along with the new material, Colin Moock has meticulously revised the entire text to conform to Flash MX best-coding practices. From sending data between two movies to creating getter/setter properties, the new edition of this book demystifies the often-confusing new features of Flash MX, giving developers easy access to its powerful new capabilities.


Customer Reviews:

Genius++ (30 of 30 Found this Helpful)   January 22, 2003
I bought Colin Moock's previous book (on flash 5) the day it was released because as an investor of many other sub-standard flash books, I knew the one from O'Reilly (the book's publisher) would be the most valuable. Without fail, "Actionscript: A Definitive Guide" blew me away. Not only was his book extremely informative, but his writing style was conversational, concise, and accessible. Though I had experience with actionscript, my background wasn't in programming, so it was nice to have an "in" to the advanced features of actionscript with Moock's example scripts and corresponding explanations. After a few months of employing the ideas and concepts found easily in Moock's first book...I felt like I finally had a firm grip on Flash 5...

Then Flash MX was released. Immediately I bought it and quickly transitioned myself into the new work enviornment (love it). Then I read up on all the new features...and thought to myself...I wish Colin would write a book for Flash MX's actionscript...it is way more powerful...and more complicated...

He did. It took longer than my patience would have liked...but the wait was well worth it...and the book explains its own delay...IT IS HUGE. Almost twice the size of the first edition...and that's because almost every chapter is edited, has new important explanations and the same easy-to-understand commentaries and examples. Indeed there are entirely NEW chapters...that specifically discuss new immensely more powerful Flash MX actionscript features. Also, all the appendices are new and updated (I frequently use them).

If you own Flash MX and you want to be a serious flash developer with serious marketable skills, BUY THIS BOOK above all--it is a REAL REFERENCE tool--something you will keep on your desk next to your mouse. Nothing is left out except some add-in features (like comm server and UI components) which you can get plenty of info on at macromedia's website. You can also frequent colin's website (moock.org) where he posts hundreds of additional tips, book errata info, and flash downloads.

I garentee "Actionscript for Flash MX" will become the best investment you made outside of the Flash MX application itself...at least until flash 7 is released! If you learn the concepts in this book, you will be able to create anything you or your client can imagine. In the end, that could mean lots of money or lots of fun...or both! Enjoy!

And by the way...buy it at Amazon...it's almost 20 bucks cheaper than the bookstores.


An obvious purchase (31 of 33 Found this Helpful)   March 19, 2003
This book is primarily an obvious purchase because of the extremely cretinous policy driving Macromedia's manual publications. Much of what is in this book belongs in Macromedia documentation.

Like all reference texts (really dictonaries for language learners) this book is not for beginners. Unless you have some experience with program design, you are unlikely to learn how to assemble even a reasonable suite of code from the text. That's not a criticsm of the text - it just isn't written for that market.

Almost every language construct gets a piece of exemplar code to illustrate calls and side effects. Even the OO side of things, such as it is in Actionscript, gets played out.

This is a fine book and the sheer labour involved in fiddling with every function is a credit to the author's resilience.

If you are actually programming in Actionscript rather than merely mooning over the nice Flash UI, then this book will be very useful.


DEFINITIVE IN EVERY SENSE (11 of 12 Found this Helpful)   January 30, 2003
This edition of "ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide" is truly definitive. Its language reference alone has almost doubled, when compared to what featured in the previous edition. A lot of new methods, classes, objects, and properties have been added. Also, there are hundreds of new code examples which simplified the latest techniques of Flash MX: thus making tasks like: how to create reusable components, draw circles, save data to disk, preload variables and convert arrays to onscreen tables, more understandable.
This book is really superb. Its beauty is that it analyzed every aspect of Flash MX tools, including all the undocumented and misdocumented features.


Excellent Overall, but one small issue... (7 of 7 Found this Helpful)   March 4, 2003
Extremely readable book. I'm a graphic/web designer with plenty of non-scripting experience with Flash. I've had several failed attempts at learning programming/scripting (Perl, PHP and Javascript, primarily) so many of the basic concepts were familiar to me. For me, perhaps tying the scripting in with something I already know well will be what I need to retain the material. Time will tell.

My only wish/want/desire for this book, and this is picking at nits, is to have more to do - more exercises - especially for some of the more complex concepts. I was not inspired to replicate every little chunk of code embedded in the explanations and test it in Flash. Through some of the longer stretches (esp. between the first and second versions of the quiz exercise) I found my eyes glazing over a couple times. But I'm still giving this book five stars because the Language Reference (over half the book's 1000+ pages) will prove to be invaluable over time, I'm sure.


definative is exactly what it is (6 of 6 Found this Helpful)   June 19, 2003
I've bought quite a lot of books, some better than others, this one has it's position right next to my work computer. I cannot remember everything, and this book provides an excellent source of reference, as even now although I've read it many times and understand the concepts, the finer points sometimes need completion. This reference section covers just about everything. - I'd give it a "must have".


Related Products
Essential ActionScript 2.0
Essential ActionScript 3.0 (Essential)
Flash Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools
Foundation ActionScript Animation: Making Things Move!
Learning ActionScript 3.0: A Beginner's Guide


Questions? Please contact the us.
For great deals visit: Best Deals and Discounts