Macromedia Flash MX Unleashed FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
Once, Flash was a toy for creating eye candy. But, with Flash MX, it�s become a powerful tool for building serious web applications. That�s the �new Flash� Matthew Pizzi focuses on in Flash MX Unleashed. Certainly, he reviews fundamentals that every Flash user needs: how to create and import graphics, use the Timeline to build effective animations, create more efficient movies using symbols and the Library. But where this book really shines is in its detailed coverage of Flash MX application development.
You may not be surprised at Pizzi�s thorough coverage of Flash MX ActionScript (though you�ll certainly appreciate his complete back-of-the-book ActionScript reference, which makes it easier to use this book as your complete ActionScript resource).
But ActionScript�s only the beginning. Pizzi walks you through integrating Flash with back-end applications created with ColdFusion; with Microsoft Active Server Pages applications (including database applications that utilize ADO connections; and (if you prefer a more �open� solution) with PHP and MySQL. The book concludes with a thoughtful discussion of Flash server integration -- including active process models, implementation issues, serving active content, configuring movies to load network data, and more.
Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Macromedia Flash is the key to designing and delivering low-bandwidth animations, presentations, and Web sites. It offers scripting capabilities and server-side connectivity for creating engaging applications, Web interfaces, and training courses. Of the 250,000 registered Flash users, half of them are developers. Now tha Allaire and macromedia have merged, this next version of Flash will integrate much better with ColdFusion. While Flash can display and manipulate data in a browser, this capability is much more powerful when coupled with an application server. By providing database connectivity and a server-side scripting environment, application servers allow you to dynamically generate the content or data that will be displayed using Flash. As a result, you can keep the content on your site up to date more easily as well as deliver a much more intuitive, application-like front-end to yoru dynamic applications. The majority of this book will cover those high-end topics, providing a solid reference for developers.
SYNOPSIS
Written for web developers, whether familiar with Flash 4 or not, this guide describes the development of web sites through the integration of ActionScript and middleware, such as PHP and ColdFusion. The authors explain different animation and masking techniques, music and publishing formats, types of data and variables, and ways to position movie clips, then address functions, arrays, components, event handlers, predefined ActionScript objects, text fields, and debugging. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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