ActionScript 3.0 for Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Hands-On Training | 
| Author: Todd Perkins
Publisher: Peachpit Press
Category: Book
List Price: $49.99
Buy New: $24.98
You Save: $25.01 (50%)
New (42) Used (12) from $24.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 12115
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 376
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0321293908
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.696
EAN: 9780321293909
ASIN: 0321293908
Publication Date: October 5, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: 100% brand new book, ships fast.Brand New Book 100% guaranteed. No underlining or highlighting. Ships the same day you order. Free Tracking with every order. Quality Plus from QP Books.
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Product Description
When Flash Player 9 released in June 2006, it introduced the new scripting language, ActionScript 3, which has already taken hold in the Adobe Flex application development community. In its latest release, Flash CS3 incorporates this new and much improved upon language into its development environment, giving Flash authors more flexibility than ever before. Now, they just need to learn how to use it and get started quickly. For the first time, the Flash experts at Lynda.com have poured their training expertise into this exciting book release. ActionScript 3 in Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Hands-On Training teaches readers all they need to know to get up and running with ActionScript 3 in Flash. It covers all the essentials and new features, including the brand new ActionScript debugger that allows users to step through a wide variety of properties in their code at runtime, with greater flexibility and feedback. Readers will also learn modern Web design and workflow techniques for developing their projects successfully with Flash using ActionScript 3. Accompanied by a CD-ROM loaded with classroom-proven exercises and QuickTime training videos, this book ensures readers will master the key features of ActionScript 3 in no time. Now that Flash is an integral part of the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium, Web Standard, and Design Premium packages, there is an even greater need for the clear, step-by-step approach this book offers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Useful With Some Handholding... August 25, 2008
Thanks to the LA Flash Club for letting me take this book out from their library in order to get a better grasp on ActionScript. I am by no means computer illiterate, but I also needed to be brought up to speed on flash.
The book is laid out in a logical order, first introducing ActionScript, then explaining basic communication techniques before going deeper into the more complicated topics such as graphs, arrays, and functions.
The pages are set up in a visually impressive way. The colors and large screen shots make following the text not too difficult and the colored code makes sure I avoid the occasional careless typo. While the layout was clear and the instructions were good, it got to the point where the step by step "click this..type this...click that..." hand holding was a bit excessive.
The projects get the point of the lesson across, but they seem disconnected from one another and often the book instructs you not to bother saving your work when you finish. I would have appreciated seeing how all the techniques would combine on a larger scale as opposed to separate projects independent of each other.
The CD included with the book is a very useful resource and aids in the learning process. Throughout the entire book it is constantly referring to files contained on the CD for you to work along with. While this does make learning process easier another complaint that i have is that it does not delve
very deep into the actual programming. It covers the subjects that i want, just not with the depth i need.
Overall the book is a solid introduction to ActionScript, but if you are looking for a one stop resource for everything ActionScript this is not it.
Helpful compact reference July 5, 2008
What this book does, it does very well. It illustrates the new syntax and methods of AS3, and shows you exactly how to use them. It is illustrated and organized so efficiently that it can function as a "cookbook" reference.
It's a deceptively compact book, very handsomely bound and thoroughly illustrated with color screenshot examples. It is much better printed than earlier lynda-dot-com H-O-T Flash books (cleaner typography, opaque paper for color printing), though inside there's a superficial family resemblance. You get a series of step-by-step, read-and-type exercises, as well as a few supporting video tutorials. It even uses the old "snowboarder" example that the H-O-T books have used for the last three versions of Flash.
As I say, the resemblance is only superficial. The tutorials are much more concentrated than is usual. The chapters and subsections are short--a key concept may be covered and demonstrated in just two or three pages--but this concentration of material can make it very slow-going, requiring two or three re-reads. The few videos provided seem to be there merely for tradition's sake and add little to the tutorials.
I recommend this book but do not recommend attempting to learn AS3 from this book alone. Its virtue is its limitation: the author covers all the basics, seldom digressing from his lessons, so you may feel cramped and distracted if you try to cover more than one chapter at time. What you're missing is commentary and elbow room, a sense of overall context and practical application. For this you should get the Shupe/Rosser book (Learning ActionScript 3.0) and two or three others.
You might also get Todd Perkins's follow-on to this book, '...Beyond the Basics,' also from lynda. Though more advanced, it recaps this book's material very well, and being a series of short video tutorials is easier to follow. Put both Todd Perkins efforts together, and you get one fine five-star tutorial on how to code ActionScript 3.0.
 Step by basic step May 27, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you are an animator looking to enter the world of actionscript, or you just don't have much development experience, then this book may be appropriate, but for anyone else the useful content could be compressed to the size of a pamphlet.
As for the accompanying CD, I found the content on this to be totally useless, there are much better video tutorials available on-line for free.
 The best AS3 book for a beginner May 14, 2008
The author takes you step-by-step through useful examples that make the learning flow very easily from basic to intermediate. The style is crisp, with just the right amount of humor. Perfect to get your grounding if you are just getting into ActionScript 3.0
Very Useful May 9, 2008
I am a regular user of Flash, however ActionScript (other than the really basic stuff) has always been a mystery to me. This book helped me to understand it in a way I never thought possible. I highly recommend it.
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