Gerald YardFace

Creating web designs and site content in Macromedia Flash MX can be a lot of fun, but there are always tasks that you'll want to do again and again. It's always a bit of a hassle to have to keep recreating and tweaking the same old content or functionality in different projects, so why can't you just reuse what you've created? With components, you can do just that! Flash MX Components enable the creation of self-contained design building blocks that can be simply dragged and dropped into any Flash movie. They are flexible enough to be easily customized to take care of many different tasks. No fuss, no bother - you can repurpose the standard elements of your design, application, or game, and use them over and over again. But wait, it gets better! Components can be used by anyone, not just the person who created them. So in this book, we've done all the hard work for you and collected together the Most Wanted components that will make your life easier. In this book (and on the CD) youíll find a perfect combination of creative and functional components from some of today's leading Flash designers and developers. Just look at the fantastic components you get: - Event Calendar - David Doull - Text Editor - Josh Dura - XML News Ticker - Jon Steer - Tool Tip - Brandon Williams - Sketchpad - Steve Young - Video Player - Jen DeHaan - Image Scroller - Brian Monnone - Pattern Generators - Paul Prudence - TabControl - Jeremy Larkin - Sliding Panel - Todd Marks - ColorPicker - Jeremy Larkin - Game Player Selector - Todd Coulson - Particle Emitter - Jared Tarbell - Layout Manager - Michael Montagna - Data Grid - Daryn Nakhuda - Movie Loader - Aral Balkan - Image Modulators - Lifaros - XML-to-ActionScript Converter - Mike Pearce - Virtual 3D Trackball - James Palmer - Text Animations - Todd Yard - Dynamic Text Manager - Peter Elst Each of these components is included on the accompanying CD, ready to incorporate within your designs, along with plenty of example files giving practical demonstrations of their use. On top of that, each chapter in this book presents a comprehensive designer-oriented guide that will help you to get the most out of using all of the featured components. If youíre a Flash designer, of any ability from novice to professional, this book will increase the power of your Flash designs and enhance your project workflow ñ instantly! From the Publisher This book is for experienced Flash users and novices alike. That is the beauty of Flash components, they are so easy to use that those who are fairly new to Flash can use them to create movies that would ordinarily be out of their reach, whereas the more experienced designer can use them as great time-saving tools, cutting the time needed to create their applications and improving their productivity.

Why is this book called "3D Cheats"? Unlike committed 3D applications (like Maya, 3D Studio Max, Swift 3D), Flash MX doesn’t have an internal 3D engine, and therefore if a designer wants include realistic 3D effects in their Flash designs they must either import from one of these other 3D applications (can be complex, expensive, and time-consuming), or rely on "pseudo-3D" effects – 2D graphics rendered to mimic realistic 3D imagery. This book teaches users how to employ 3D principles without having to learn the official names for everything. Digital 3D is a tricky area – and until the day someone makes 3D TV commercially viable, it’s going to remain a tricky area. What is 3D? Can you genuinely render 3D on a flat screen? Do you have to spend a year’s wages to get a dedicated piece of 3D software? Do you have to conjure up a bunch of complex math techniques to make the grade? Is anyone going to answer these interminable questions? Well, listen: we’re not out to work ourselves into the ground here. We want 3D and we want it fast, and we want to use Flash to get it. In a series of clear and concise demonstrations, this book shows you exactly what can be achieved in Web 3D. Some of the most cunning designers around have put their heads together to present these: the most wanted 3D cheats in Flash. This book will show you that you can: - Lie your way into 3D with simple drawing techniques. - Cheat a 3D interface with cunning use of light and shadow. - Fool Flash into thinking it can render genuine 3D, and con the Internet into delivering it for us in double-quick time. - Hoodwink visitors into thinking they’re witnessing focus and depth of field. - Improve your depth of deception with an innovative slice engine to create convincing 3D objects. - Trick users into thinking they’re moving through a 3D space.

Foundation ActionScript 3.0 Image Effects discusses the ins and outs of graphical manipulation through code of all the different elements available in a Flash project, from vectors to bitmaps to videos, from animated text effects to dynamic video filters. Flash 8 introduced a vast array of image features, such as blend modes and filters as well as ActionScript's powerful BitmapData object, and this book covers all those effects in their CS4 form, as well as the graphical options that are available, such as the Pixel Bender Toolkit. It also details the many possible effects that can be achieved and the associated practical applications, with a focus on strong object-oriented programming methodologies to make the code more modular and reusable across projects.Gives detailed information on all of the image manipulation abilities of Flash CS4 Covers complex technology, such as the Pixel Bender Toolkit There is no other book like it, covering the same topics in as much depth

If you want to create exciting dynamic web sites that will amaze your online audience, then the Flash platform is a great way to go, with it's many features, including powerful graphical and sound and video capabilities. To really harness the power of Flash though, you need to make use of ActionScript to provide dynamic effects, enable user interaction, and manipulate data. ActionScript 3.0, the Flash Platform's scripting language, offers a lot of new and powerful features. ActionScript is now a full-fledged programming language, with complete object-oriented capabilities, improved event handling, sound and video support, drawing capabilities, support for regular expressions, and much more. Whether you are a Flash designer wishing to add to your skill set or an experienced ActionScript developer who wants to get up to speed with the latest version, you'll find all you need to know in Foundation ActionScript 3.0 with Flash CS3 and Flex. This book covers all the essential techniques from the ground up, allowing you to get up and running quickly and easily. Starting with the fundamentals, you'll learn about using ActionScript objects, manipulating sound and video, and harnessing the power of regular expressions and XML. The book concludes with two case studies to consolidate what you've learned and to introduce some more advanced techniques. This will give you some grounding in the new and exciting world of ActionScript 3.0 and show you how it all fits together in larger applications, allowing you to go on and build your own professional sites. The sensible layout of the book makes it easy to find information about specific techniques. It doesn't aim to be an exhaustive reference, but rather focuses on the essential skills that will enable you to get up and running more quickly. With this book as your guide, you'll be creating killer Flash applications before you know it!

With the release of Macromedia Flash 8, Flash is the most powerful and widely-used client software for the web, and it's the only one that runs on virtually every browser, on every platform. It also features ActionScript, a scripting language with great object-oriented support. As such, Flash is the ideal platform for producing sophisticated object-oriented web applications. Complex applications demand a solid understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques, regardless of the language and platform used, and this book will provide all you need. Object-Oriented ActionScript For Flash 8 teaches the theory and practice of OOP with ActionScript. You do not need any extensive prior programming experience, you just need to want to go beyond the usual Flash interfaces. Authors and working Flash developers Peter Elst and Todd Yard take you through the complete development cycle of a series of related applications, using numerous step-by-step instructions. You'll be able to develop highly reusable applications and services that leverage the dynamic features in Flash. This book demonstrates professional OOP skills and techniques that are completely transferable to other programming languages and technologies, including Inheritance, Polymorphism, managing classes, component development, consuming web services, and much more. It also includes some cutting edge ActionScript programming techniques, and animation and effects classes.

As a creative professional or interactive developer, you’ll be amazed at the exciting possibilities presented to you by the features available in Flash 8; but as a busy designer, we know you won't have as much time as you’d like to explore these new additions. Never fear; this book wastes no time looking at timeline basics, tweens, or movie-publishing options—it focuses exclusively on the new Flash 8 features, getting you quickly up to speed with a combination of illustrative tutorials, handy references, and inspirational examples. By the end of the book, you’ll know that there’s no shortage of new tools to enhance and inspire your Flash development; and since this book is written by some of the community's leading Flash experts, you’ll know you’re in good hands. If you’re looking to master Flash 8 with a minimum of time and effort, then this is the only book for you.

Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 introduce a new extensibility architecture. This is not an upgrade to an existing feature, but a brand new concept that nobody using an earlier version of Flash has seen or used before. With the extensibility tools, which include behaviors, custom-made tools and commands, the JavaScript API (or JSFL), and the XML-to-UI API, you can literally extend Flash to do things it cannot do out of the box. Things such as adding new custom commands to the menu and customizing the tool bar, adding brand new, custom created tools. The commands could be as simple as drawing a commonly used shape on the stage, or as complex as creating an entire new Flash movie from scratch. Tools take into account mouse actions and property inspector parameters. This allows you for custom shapes much as are seen in Microsoft Office, for example, stars, callouts, arrows, etc.These new features will not only allow users to share code and effects more easily within the community or a production environment, but will also allow developers to package up and reuse more within Flash than was ever possible before, increasing productivity and decreasing production times. Some simple commands, tools, effects and behaviors will be included with Flash MX 2004, but the possibilities of what one could do with these are staggering. Virtually anything you can do in the authoring environment can now be written into a command or behavior.

Flash.NET is the book which is your ticket to the future of application design. Two cutting-edge technologies, joined in union to provide the perfect marriage. Macromedia Flash MX really excels when it comes to presenting graphical, interactive content. It's a superb tool for building user interfaces and for presenting content that changes over time. Microsoft's .NET Framework is a suite of tools for building powerful applications, both on and off the Web. Put them together, and a whole raft of new possibilities opens up for both: powerful logic and functionality with a rich, flexible interface on the front. Put them together, and you get Flash.NET. In this book, a team of expert designers and developers show you the basics of adding dynamic .NET content and turbo-charged server-side functionality to your Flash MX projects. In short, you need this book if you're a Flash designer who doesn't want to get left behind when all the cool people have started utilizing the power of .NET with their applications. To run the examples in this book for yourself, you'll need: * Microsoft Windows 2000/XP * Macromedia Flash MX * Microsoft .NET Framework SDK (free download from Microsoft) The book also covers Macromedia Flash Remoting MX. From the Publisher This book is for readers who are looking to integrate their Flash movies with a .NET enabled back-end. It assumes no prior knowledge of server side technologies but does require a knowledge of Flash MX and ActionScript.

This book takes an in-depth look at purposing your Flash skills towards developing fully functional Flash Applications. Taking its lead from the design element, each chapter takes you a step further into evolving your design skills into application development. It will look at: - Focusing your interface design for ease of use - Shaping up the back end to keep things simple - Delivering complex content, including video Using a blend of instructional and inspirational chapters, this book looks at Flashís strengths ñ graphical dynamism, interactivity, back-end punch and multimedia delivery. - Make gorgeous sites in tiny files with the Drawing API - Look at the marriage of data and beauty with a Flash Family Tree - Create real-feel interfaces that mimic different media - Make XML do the donkey-work in site structure - Ease up you navigation with PHP - Create an entire drawing application - Deliver video and make it interactive with Flash ...and so much more! From the Publisher This book is for people who want to hone their Flash skills to make their code really work for its supper. With one look at these inspiring interfaces, youíll see that everything pitches in to the final design. Itís foxy and functional, and will show you some indispensable techniques.

How does your work stand up in the freshly competitive environment of the Flash MX marketplace? How can you streamline your ideas to give them greater usability? Where can you take your ideas next? Macromedia Flash MX Studio takes your raw Flash talent and multiplies its potency by focusing it on real-world web design situations. In the heady days of the late 1990s, designers were trying their hand at anything and everything they could lay their hands on. Now the marketplace is seriously focused, and serious Flash designers have to know exactly what theyíre doing and why. These days itís all about functionality over experimentation, justification over style. Itís all about Maturity. The design must fit the job spec, and this book shows the reader how to fulfil these requirements and more. This book examines all the avenues open to professional or aspiring professional Flash MX designers. It takes a look at advanced uses of the new MX features, such as components and the Drawing API, and gives guidance on building whole new structures for animation, Dynamic Content, PHP, ColdFusion MX, XML, video, audio and audiovisual formats. Never before has so much power been so accessible to the web designer. This book is designed to put that power in your hands. Book Info Based around a single hands-on project for readers to build-constructing an effective Flash web site from scratch for a major commercial client. Softcover. CD-ROM included. From the Publisher Macromedia Flash MX Studio has been broken into four sections to address the most common needs for the Flash designer. First off, Jamie McDonald provides five chapters on site presentation and the principles of web design. These opening chapters take a look at how to create slick, professional-level sites, involving Flash MXís new drawing and motion capabilities and interactive techniques. The second section concentrates on ActionScript. Flashís resident coding environment is crucial to master, and taps into Flashís great strength ñ intuitive and interactive applications. Keith Peters and Todd Yard have buddied up on this section, and examine some of the most advanced ActionScript techniques around. Be warned ñ this section is not for the faint-hearted! Section three takes a look at Flash MXís greatly improved visual, audio and audiovisual capabilities. Its three chapters, written by Jez Turner and Alex White, concentrate on building a single site aimed at displaying rich media content. The final section is devoted to expounding a few myths about dynamic content using Flash. Its four chapters talk about general practice, before focusing in on specific areas, including introductions to PHP and XML, together with a look at Macromediaís brand new ColdFusion MX.

Some friends of ED books concentrate on more serious aspects of Flash - this one concentrates on the fun. Flash can be used for many purposes, but making visually stunning effects to impress your boss, your friends, and anyone who looks at your site is one of the most rewarding. Friends of ED have scoured the web and the Flash community, discovering the most requested and popular Flash effects in action today. We have investigated the visual effects and actual design techniques that Flash beginners have been asking for. The visual inspiration and detailed explanations of how to recreate these effects are combined together in this book. The eight leading designers in this full color book take these effects apart, showing you how to adapt your basic Flash knowledge to achieve results exceeding anything you thought possible. The effects stay true to the tried and tested friends of ED design-centric approach, with full exercises and explanations for each effect. Topics include: ground-breaking site navigation; a dynamic MP3 jukebox; cartoon animation; and Flash math visual effects. All you need to use this book is a knowlegde of the Flash MX interface, and some imagination. So sit back, relax, and open up your mind to the visual potential of Flash MX. As with all books from friends of ED our support is fast, friendly and free. Your queries will be passed onto the editors and authors who put the book together.