Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic for both beginners and experts!!!
Comment: Don't get mislead by the title, this book can help both designers and the average Joe. This book is a great aid for ANYONE who wants to learn about flash.
This I have to say is the PERFECT book for flash. Foundation Flash CS3 for Designers is a great refresher for all of the basic tools for flash. Not only does it teach these fundamental tools but teaches you code as well. Gives step by step lessons for all of the topics introduced in this book. This book not only covers animation but also text, audio, video, mobile and MORE!!!
This book isn't just for those who want to learn flash as a hobby but also for those who want to get into the industry as well. If you are a beginner this is THE how to book that covers all the essentials of flash and more!! This book gradually leads you into more advance topics with plenty of commentary written in the chapters to help you out. It teaches the lessons step by step instead of throwing you the task all at once. The book also comes with supplemental material that you can access online. Some of the supplemental material comes with exercises you can work through to learn flash. It teaches you flash in the most practical way; you learn by doing.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not flashy but it helped me in a flash....with flash
Comment: I thought the book was very informative. I love the examples. I like that the book is basic. The only down part is that sometimes I had problems breaking outside the "tutorial" box and using the examples for my work. The book did do great on covering basic uses of flash for graphics and design. If you're a designer and are looking to learn flash, its the perfect book for you to read. It covers a very broad range of flash knowledge which is perfect for the beginning flash user.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good and useful book to help you learn Flash
Comment: First I should say that I didn't read the entire book, but I used it more as a reference. The index was pretty good, and I was able to look up what I needed for the most part. I think how the book is structured makes Flash not seem too intimidating. It has a good flow into how to tackle the different aspects of Flash. I was already somewhat familiar with Flash before getting this book so it was helpful in clarifying concepts that I didn't remember or didn't really grasp yet.
The only things that really bothered me about this book were the typos. In the Ch. 1 exercise called Moonrise over Lake Nanagook, the last steps needed to complete the exercise were abruptly left off. At least at the book's website, you can download the completed .fla and see how the finished exercise is supposed to look like (a huge plus if you get stuck or need to make sure you did the exercise completely). The book also doesn't specify that you have to put the two trees in separate layers or else the output won't turn out the way you want it to. Another nitpicky thing is that the mp3 player exercise in Ch. 5 refers to the actions layer when it should be referring to the scripts layer. These are small things, but I don't like to be confused when I'm walking through tutorials. As with all books, it would be very useful if there was an errata posted on the book's website.
Overall, the exercises were the most useful for me, and there are a lot of different varied exercises that you can walk through. Some of the exercises are really short, and I did find myself wanting more complex exercises to walk through like moonrise and mp3 player ones. For the price that I bought it off of Amazon, you do get more than your money's worth.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A+ Must have for Developers
Comment: After searching for just the right book on Flash CS3 I finally found a book that's comprehensive and easy to learn from. Starting at the Basics right through an intro to Action Script 3.0. This book helped me pull off some amazing applications using the new Adobe CS3 Flash.
I was impressed with the learning technique used and the illustrations that helped tie the tutorials together.
I would highly recommend this book for those interested in Flash CS3 weather a first time Flash user or a seasoned professional developer. It's a must have for your library.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Code for Designers!
Comment: In a word... Excellent! Challenging material made clear and accessible. It's not surprising to find that one of the authors is a long time teacher.
I've been reviewing this book for use as a textbook in community college level interactive multimedia classes. Since our department has grown out of a traditional graphic design program, we still face some resistance when it comes to teaching any kind programming. Now that so many artistic pursuits involves pushing around 1's and 0's, the institutional tendency to separate art and science, right brain/left brain, is no longer workable. The artist/designer of the future will have to be skilled in logic and at least the rudiments of programming. (for an excellent rant on this, see Aral Balkan's forward to ActionScript 3 for Animation by Keith Peters)
So, imagine the smile on my face when I saw the index to this book. ActionScript in chapter 4... well before animation in chapter 7... in a book with "for Designers" in the title! The inclusion of ActionScript so early in the learning process will allow us a much more integrated approach - something that is critical now that Flash is all grown up.
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