Description:

"Foundation Flash 8" by Sham Bhangal and Kristian Besley is, overall, an excellent introduction for all new Flash users, be they right-brained artists who think a line is something you draw in a picture or left-brained techies who think a line is something you write in a program. Right-brained readers will be enthralled by the first half of the book's focuses on Flash's drawing and animating features, with exhaustive treatment of symbols, colors, tweening, and masks. There's even an excellent section on text and text animation. Left-brained readers will drool over the second half of the book, which runs from simple behaviors to intelligent actions to "intermediate" ActionScript. Somewhere in the middle, there is lots of talk about buttons -- and artists will be thrilled with all the things they learn to do to make them look pretty and programmers will be equally thrilled with all the things they learn to do to make them do neat things when pushed. Of course, if artists didn't learn some ActionScript (or at least some basic Flash behaviors), or if programmers didn't learn animation, then there would be no point to learning Flash. Bhangal and Besley manage, in "Foundation Flash 8," to teach the full range of foundation Flash functionality to the full range of novice Flash users. While programmers might yawn a bit during the first few, graphics-intensive chapters (and, I imagine, while artists' eyes might spin somewhat during the last couple of ActionScript chapters), there's plenty in this book to keep everybody happy. Conveniently, the authors have structured the ongoing case study -- and have provided intermediate project files -- so that skipping sections or chapters is possible. The authors make no assumptions about the level of knowledge of readers, other than that experienced Flash users are not their target audience. Everything is taught from square one (or, sometimes a bit frustratingly, from square zero). Straightforward and moderately complex topics are explained well throughout, and the more advanced scripting topics are equally well presented. One shortcoming is the less-than-stellar handling of complex, abstract graphics topics, such as advanced gradients and Bézier curves; as the authors put it on page 63, "It's easier to do than to explain!" Friends of ED publishes what are probably the best design-oriented books in the business, and "Foundation Flash 8" certainly fits their usual high standards. The paper is thick and bright, the typography is pleasant, and the writing style is friendly -- at times bordering on plucky (page 132: "Colors, fills, and gradients are the extra paprika on the already tongue-tingling dish that is Flash"). This particular volume does suffer a bit from its two-column layout, which results in figures -- particularly screenshots -- being a bit too small for comfort, and from its one-color printing, which is not so much a problem in a book on, say, Dreamweaver or PHP but which is a significant disadvantage in a book dealing with a drawing and animation tool. (As the authors themselves acknowledge on page 132, "It's never going to be entirely satisfactory to discuss color in a book printed in black and white...") Pluckiness and monochromicity notwithstanding, "Foundation Flash 8" does exactly what its name suggests -- it gives the reader a solid foundation in Flash 8 -- and it does it well. The book is comprehensive, accurate, clear, and well organized, and most importantly, it bears the "Friends of ED" cachet and is backed up by the best support in the business: the Friends of ED readers' forum, a lively and helpful online community frequented by authors and other experts always willing to answer question and to help solve problems. "Foundation Flash 8" is a fine choice for anyone eager to get his hands wet with Flash. I strongly recommend this book.