ActionScript : the Definitive Guide

Colin Moock has put together a book we have all been waiting for. ActionScript: the Definitive Guide is a book explaining the language of ActionScript itself (the object oriented programming language of Flash) with detailed descriptions and applied examples throughout as well as being the most comprehensive reference book for ActionScript to hit the shelves.

TITLE: ActionScript : the Definitive Guide
PUBLISHER: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
ISBN: 565928520
PAGES: 672 b/w
CD: Source files available online
AUTHOR: Colin Moock

Get it now from Amazon.com

The book speaks to new and expert programmers alike with easy to follow instructions including side notes and tips. Each aspect of ActionScript is touched with bits of code to test out while reading.

Notice: this book is not an attempt to cover concepts of flash design or learning how to use the design tools in flash. It does cover ActionScript, as a viable Internet programming language, in great detail.

The preface of the book covers the history of ActionScript and is written by the inventor Gary Gossman, Principal Engineer for the Macromedia Flash Team.

The first part of the book goes over ActionScript fundamentals gradually increasing in difficulty including variables, datatypes, operators and functions. With each example building on the next, it is very easy to follow along. At the end of the first chapter, there is even a great applied example to build in the form of a multiple-choice quiz. As the chapters progress, the quiz is revisited and re-designed using new techniques just covered.

The second part of the book goes over more uses of flash programming as well as how to use the built in debugger and the authoring environement. Some of the applied examples discussed in the second part are using forms as well as on-screen text fields.

Part three is the most complete reference guide for ActionScript out there. It includes each built in class, object, function, property, and event handler in ActionScript. You will go to this section regulary because each piece of ActionScript in the reference guide has an Availability (version of Flash it was introduced in), synopsis of how to use it, possible arguments, a description and an example.

After the reference guide, the book covers available resources including the companion site for this book, reference guide for Keycodes and backward compatibility issues.

This book as a reference guide alone goes beyond any other previous benchmarks for ActionScript guides. Combine that with Colin Moock's unique way of presenting flash programming so that anyone could understand and learn makes this book a must have in any flash programmers backpack. Especially at just under $40.

 

 

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