Top Flash Books

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Let us post all the excellent marvel flash bibles you all have and make the largest and most trusted archive of nice flash books! If this is posted as a sticky, all the better!

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Title : Macromedia Flash MX Most Wanted Effects & Movies

Authors : Sham Bhangal, Chad Corbin, David Doull, Keith Peters, Adam Phillips, Jordan Stone, Todd Yard

Publisher : Friends of ED ( www.friendsofed.com)

Overview : Flash MX most wanted gives you all you need to create the most commonly requested Flash effects and movies with Fast and Fun examples.

What is covered :

- High impact cinema style flash intro
- innovative navigation system
- Flash MP3 Jukebox!
- Visually awesome flash math effects
- animated text effects
- dynamic, interactive drawin'
- Attention grabbing preloaders
- Animation - from idea to post production

What I say : A great read and an excellent book that runs thru almost everything a newbie would want to do in flash. I found the preloader part extremely useful. This is, I think, geared to those who are familiar to a little actionscript and flash, but might be too easy to advanced users. Beginners might try it out.. as the code is simple enough to understand and short explanations are given when the book provides some code for an action. Clear and concise, to-the-very-dot.

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For the patient reader,
a book that, once read, ensures you are a flash pro at the end!

Title : Actionscripting in Flash MX
Author : Phillip Kerman
Publisher : New Riders
Level ( I think appropriate ) : Beginner / Beginner-Intermediate

What I say : Its long ( a 700pages book ) with little humour but clear content. Some stuff might be hard to muster and might get quite boring after awhile but I guarantee that after reading this book, you should be able to have a much better knowledge of Flash. Read about 20 pages everyday and you'll be a pro in no time. Caution: For the patient, and no-nonsense 'nerd'!

Covers :
- new stuff in Flash MX
- script locations / targeting
- Events
- Data types variables
- Dot syntax
- Expressions, statements
- Operators
- Debugging.. preventing, finding, defining
- Using movie clips
- Functions
- Manipulating strings
- Array creation and changing
- objects
- user defined objects
- components, using, coding your own
- Interfacing w/ external data files / db server
- Many examples and 'workshops' available for you to get experience.