Macromedia Flash MX Studio (Paperback)

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 they're doing and why. These days it's all about functionality over experimentation, justification over style. It's 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.

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 MX's new drawing and motion capabilities and interactive techniques.

The second section concentrates on ActionScript. Flash's resident coding environment is crucial to master, and taps into Flash's great strength - 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 - this section is not for the faint-hearted!

Section three takes a look at Flash MX's 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 Macromedia's brand new ColdFusion MX.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Site Presentation
1. Motion
2. Formatting Text
3. Drawing API
4. Components
5. Taking Things Further

Section 2: ActionScript Interfaces
6. Introduction to Events and Handlers
7. Advanced Collision Detection
8. Flash Math and Physics
9. Animation and Interactivity with the Drawing API
10. 3D with the Drawing API
11. Case Study: SphereCage

Section 3: Rich Media
12. Dynamic Graphics
13. Video
14. Audio

Section 4: Dynamic Data Integration
15. Working with external files
16. Dynamic Flash: PHP
17. XML
18. Flash, ColdFusion and Remoting