Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great book for those trying to learn Flash
Comment: If you are interested in learning Flash, this is definitely a great place to start. I started with no knowledge of Flash, little artistic talent and a desire to create something cool. After going through this book, I now have a good understanding of how Flash works and I have a lot of cool animations and apps that I can show off to my friends.
The book is very well written and has a nice learning curve. Difficult concepts are explained thoroughly, and the authors give plenty of tips that help a lot when you start to move on to doing your own things. The tutorials are very thorough and come with plenty of files to download, which is very helpful if you're like me and aren't very much of an artist. This allowed me to not have to really worry about drawing anything and focus more on learning how to use Flash.
All in all, this is a great buy for anyone wanting to learn Flash, which can definitely be a daunting challenge to most without some sort of guidance, which this book provides plenty.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Awesome book!
Comment: I bought this book for a Flash course and it helped me out a lot. The book is easy to read, but is full of useful tutorials and tips. It is an awesome book for beginners trying to learn flash.
The thing I liked the most about this book are the pictures and diagrams. The fact that it has a picture/diagram on every single page makes the book more interesting and easier to read. The book is also separated into different sections so you can just flip to the section you want to learn or need help with. The book also had an informative section on Action-Script. I had no problem reading through the tutorials and understanding it.
This is the kind of book that you'll keep on your shelf and keep referring to whenever you're having difficulties with Flash. I would recommend this book to beginners and intermediates.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good overview of Flash!
Comment: Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers provides a good overview of both Flash and Action Script 3.0, even for those who may be new to the program. The setup of the chapters was helpful, with the discussion of the topics being covered followed by the exercises that allow the reader to apply the skills taught in the chapter. The class files were relatively easy to find using a search engine. The instruction in the chapters was clear and proceeded in a logical manner. This is good for someone without a strong background in technical language. In addition to instructing the reader on how to use the program, the text also covers some basics of design, such as the possibilities of using fonts in Flash documents. The highly detailed table of contents made finding particular topics in the book easy to find, with clear lists of the chapters and their respective page numbers. Overall, this text proved useful for my Flash class, and it expanded on the basic knowledge that I already had of the program.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Where are the source files?
Comment: Torn between 4 or 5-stars, it is the question "where are the source files" that makes the book less than perfect. Anyone that reads this book will ask the same question and hunt for the answer, so I'll answer it right now. Go to their website at www.friendsofed.com. Click on Downloads. Then scroll down and click on the title of the book. You'll get 2 ways to download the files - 1 big zip file (444 MB - about 2 hours w/DSL) or 14 smaller chapter files. I chose to download the individual chapters because it's quicker and Chapter 8 (video) is 324 MB by itself (Hint: download later!).
The book is so well thought out with a great layout, that I think it's unbelievable that they would overlook such a major omission. All of the content is upfront, even the tech reviewer and cover designer have their own bio pages. In fact when I looked at the blank white page that immediately follows the "introduction" but precedes the "layout conventions" I began to suspect that I probably missed it - and I did. It's written in micro-print as the last line on the copyright page (where?) just before the credits. So what gives? Probably a little joke on the readers and a gentle shove to visit their website for the clicks (uh, content).
If you can get over the fact that the pages are written in b&w or having to create your own cd (flash drive!)- it's really a great book to read and work with. I'll use Chapter 1 (Learning the Flash CS3 Professional Interface) to explain my reasons why. The title is a bit modest because it introduced a lot of material like concepts, keystrokes (PC & MAC), tools, timelines, symbols, movie clips, library, objects, layers, motion and more --- in every day language. Along the way, you're actually using them. At the end, I had a really good general understanding and a nice comfort-level with the features of Flash while being hungry for more. Perfect timing because the remaining chapters are more in-depth and build on Chapter 1. Moreover, I was excited to realize that it bridges the learning curve for the other CS3 programs. Afterwards, I jumped into another newbie book (Adobe's Dreamweaver CS3 On Demand) and nope - no fog! I haven't written a review on it yet but it's looking pretty good and it's in color.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Learning the Basics
Comment: If you are new to flash and have no experience whatsoever, the Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers from Tom Green and David Stiller is an excellent choice to get yourself familiarize with Flash CS3. I am very pleased with this purchase and learned a lot from this book. Flash is a very powerful program that involves ActionScript. Flash CS3 includes the latest version, ActionScript 3.0, which is a code oriented programming language. However, the authors tried to approach ActionScript 3.0 so that beginners will enjoy Flash. I am not a programmer, but after reading certain chapters changed the way I think about the process of coding. I can pinpoint the code to manipulate easily because it is clearly labeled and commented. As you follow along with the book, your skills will quickly give you the knowledge of becoming an advanced user.
A good chapter to beginning learning the basics of ActionSript is chapter 4. The examples are dedicated to guide you through and inspire you to put your creativity to the test. They are extremely detailed and visually can follow along because of the screen shots.
I am a new user to Flash and this book guided me through the program step by step. Like I stated before, I am just astonished at how detailed and easy the examples are. Anything that I wanted to do, the book gave a detailed example. This is an excellent book to get you familiarized with Adobe Flash CS3, whether you want to create an interactive game or a web page, this book will get you started on how to accomplish your goals using Adobe Flash CS3.
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