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Building Flash Web Sites for Dummies
Flash is today's most popular Web animation software, and it's increasingly being used as a full-fledged Web design tool, especially on multimedia sitesOne of the only books devoted entirely to using Flash in Web site design-perfect for designers who want to create a Flash Web site from scratch or to upgrade an existing site using Flash effectsOrganized to follow the typical workflow of a Web design project, the book shows how to apply Flash at each stageTopics covered include creating an interface, using Flash text tools, building buttons and bars for navigation, adding animated objects (including movies), creating interactive features with ActionScript, enhancing drop-down menus and other visual elements, adding e-commerce features, and using "eye candy" to enrich the user experience
346 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 2006
16 people want to read
About the author
Doug Sahlin
99 books6 followersDoug Sahlin is a bestselling author living in Venice, Florida. He has been a writer since he was a young man. Sahlin has published over twenty how-to books, many of them bestsellers. He has also published two mystery novels in the Yale Larsson PI Books series. When he gave New York Literary Agent Donald Maas his thirty second elevator pitch for a mystery novel, Maas said, "Doug, you have a wonderfully sick mind."
Doug published his first Yale Larsson PI novel, The Myakka Murders in 2019, followed by Sarasota Sour Grapes in 2020. He is currently working on Yale Larsson PI Book 4, A Pocketful of Euros. Sahlin's novels are based in Sarasota, Florida, a piece of paradise on the West Coast of Florida.
Praise for Doug's writing: "Doug Sahlin writes with a great eye for detail and an ear for dialogue."
Mark Mathes--Editor
Praise for "Doug's first novel, The Myakka Murders:
"A must read for murder mystery lovers." Ceil Warren
Doug Sahlin's web site
Doug published his first Yale Larsson PI novel, The Myakka Murders in 2019, followed by Sarasota Sour Grapes in 2020. He is currently working on Yale Larsson PI Book 4, A Pocketful of Euros. Sahlin's novels are based in Sarasota, Florida, a piece of paradise on the West Coast of Florida.
Praise for Doug's writing: "Doug Sahlin writes with a great eye for detail and an ear for dialogue."
Mark Mathes--Editor
Praise for "Doug's first novel, The Myakka Murders:
"A must read for murder mystery lovers." Ceil Warren
Doug Sahlin's web site
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 18, 2010
This book is a joke. I don't know who it is directed to - there's too much beginner stuff for Flash developers who want to dabble in full-fledged web design (even though the book claims in the intro that you need basic knowledge of Flash to understand it), but it also is useless for web designers who want to create Flash sites. The author is not a web designer and it shows rather painfully.
Basically, this book will teach you the very basics of Flash (managing symbols, creating buttons and animations) in order to create an abomination hardly accessible even for regular users and a usability nightmare. The author mentions 'King of Cool', 'pizzazz' and 'masterpiece' on nearly every page and is so fond of dancing and singing annoying junk that it makes me sick. Even though the book was written in 2006, it seems to advocate for sites that were popular in early 00's - with sliding animations, background music, movies, and doing everything to point out how cool they are. The author actually recommends opening external links in new windows so that 'your masterpiece remains in the user's browser'.
You can't even learn much from it. Half of the pages are devoted to guiding you through Script Assist! (!) Many times there's not even code shown to check whether you clicked stuff right. And frankly - why on Earth would someone repeat 20 times how to stop a movie via clicking away in Script Assist when they could simply type "stop();" manually?!
Even worse than that, this book takes 'annoying' to even greater level than all these Flash books that tell you options exist but are too advanced to be covered by the authors; this book tells you this info is all you need to create a sparkly, shiny, dancing and singing website that will stun your visitors into oblivion.
If you know anything about Flash - done some simple animations, a very simplistic game - you already know enough not to need this book. The blurb is very misleading. I thought I would learn how to interact with server scripts and databases ("e-commerce" - in the book, setting up a Paypal cart), gather information from users (in the book, sending forms via e-mail without any sort of validation). There's not a word about accessibility. There's nothing about resizing Flash. The author recommends adding blank images with ALT attribute to your HTML in order to boost SEO. WHAT.
This book is not simply useless; some information and tips in it are actually harmless in modern web design. It needs either a complete rewrite or to be pulled off the market.
Basically, this book will teach you the very basics of Flash (managing symbols, creating buttons and animations) in order to create an abomination hardly accessible even for regular users and a usability nightmare. The author mentions 'King of Cool', 'pizzazz' and 'masterpiece' on nearly every page and is so fond of dancing and singing annoying junk that it makes me sick. Even though the book was written in 2006, it seems to advocate for sites that were popular in early 00's - with sliding animations, background music, movies, and doing everything to point out how cool they are. The author actually recommends opening external links in new windows so that 'your masterpiece remains in the user's browser'.
You can't even learn much from it. Half of the pages are devoted to guiding you through Script Assist! (!) Many times there's not even code shown to check whether you clicked stuff right. And frankly - why on Earth would someone repeat 20 times how to stop a movie via clicking away in Script Assist when they could simply type "stop();" manually?!
Even worse than that, this book takes 'annoying' to even greater level than all these Flash books that tell you options exist but are too advanced to be covered by the authors; this book tells you this info is all you need to create a sparkly, shiny, dancing and singing website that will stun your visitors into oblivion.
If you know anything about Flash - done some simple animations, a very simplistic game - you already know enough not to need this book. The blurb is very misleading. I thought I would learn how to interact with server scripts and databases ("e-commerce" - in the book, setting up a Paypal cart), gather information from users (in the book, sending forms via e-mail without any sort of validation). There's not a word about accessibility. There's nothing about resizing Flash. The author recommends adding blank images with ALT attribute to your HTML in order to boost SEO. WHAT.
This book is not simply useless; some information and tips in it are actually harmless in modern web design. It needs either a complete rewrite or to be pulled off the market.
August 31, 2018
You can get Flash-y with your Web site — here's how!
Know your audience, plan your site, and make it both interactive and cool
Gone are the days when you could get by with a boring Web site. With Flash, you can add interactivity, video, an exciting and easy-to-navigate interface, and eye candy like custom cursors and flying text. This friendly guide makes Flash fun and easy, so you can have your site up and running in no time.
Discover how to
Build an interface with custom buttons and menus
Include animation and soundtracks
Dress up your text
Create tween animations
Create ActionScript objects
Test and publish your site
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews