Flash Enabled: Flash Design & Development for devices

My first reaction, when I saw the list of authors on the cover of Flash Enabled was one of suspicion. Not yet another multi-author book cobbled together to meet the deadline! Twelve, (yes, twelve!) authors have contributed to this tome and, judging by my experience with other books written by multiple authors, I suspected a rush job.

PUBLISHER: New Riders
ISBN: 0-7357-1177-1
PAGES: 534 b&w
CD: No
AUTHORS: Christian Cantrell, Mike Chambers, Branden Hall, Robert Hall, Andreas Heim, Craig Kroeger, Steve Leone, Markus Niedermeier, Bill Perry, Fred Sharples, Glenn Thomas, Phillip Torrone

Alas, I was wrong, and, as I was getting deeper into it, my experience was changing to a very positive one. First of all, the authors are experienced developers, and, secondly, they recognize the limitations of the technology and do not fall into the preaching mode. Instead they share a lot of practical advice with the readers, making this book one of my favorite technology books ever.

The book starts with a short, but very well written, introduction in Chapter 1. Phillip Torrone presents a short history of Flash, a few hints on possible Flash applications on devices, and a short description of what you will find in the rest of the book.. (Note that the authors of this book refer to devices, rather than mobile devices, because what they talk about throughout the book can be applied to applications running on all small and specialized devices, from a portable phone, to an automatic teller machine.)

Chapter 2, Creating Content for the Pocket PC Using Flash, also written by Phillip Torrone, explains why would you want to develop for the Pocket PC using Flash. Phillip gives a good overview of the platform. His notes and advice will be very useful for both he developers working with Flash on Pocket PC and the managers who make strategic decisions. He then proceeds to present basic limitations and techniques for developing content for Pocket PCs. The readers will find here plenty of practical advice on what to avoid and how to design their applications to provide good user experience. There are tips on button placement, fonts, shape optimization, using sound, animation, video and more. Phillip discusses loading data from remote sources, ActionScript programming, memory management issues, and more. The readers will also find a lot of information about what tools, besides Macromedia Flash authoring package, they will need to write Flash applications for the Pocket PC. The author shares a lot of practical knowledge in this chapter, including information about Pocket PC application distribution. The ninety pages of this chapter are essential reading for anyone thinking of developing for the Pocket PC.

Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the subject of interface design and typography for devices. Branden J. Hall and Craig Kroeger show how the theory of good interface design and typography apply to the Flash applications for Pocket PC. These two chapters are essential reading for anyone who wants to make sure that their applications are as friendly and easy to use as possible. But don't worry, there is no a trace of the philosophical theorizing, instead you get plenty of practical advice on button placement, user interface elements and designing custom fonts for your application.

In Chapter 5, Bill Perry explains how to organize the workflow of your Flash project when you are creating applications for Pocket PC devices. This is a handy summary that will help you get organized before you begin creating your first application. Only a dozen or so pages, but very useful!

Part 2 begins with Chapter 6, where Glenn Thomas teaches the readers how to create motion graphics and character animation for the Pocket PC using Flash. There you will find plenty of good advice on what works and what doesn't work on Pocket PC and other "device" platforms. Glenn shows us how to avoid common bottlenecks to minimize the bandwidth and memory usage. It is one of the longer chapters in this book, filled with practical examples, tips and workarounds. While the author focuses on the Pocket PC platform, his tips could (and should) be applied to many Flash applications running on "big" PCs.

In the next chapter, Andreas Heim shows us how to create interactive Flash applications for devices. He uses a game of cards as an example, but the principles can be applied to any other game or serious application. It's a long chapter, but very well executed. A must if you want to go beyond simple point-and-click functionality.

Chapter 8 explains the intricacies of data persistence, JScript, and HTTP cookies. The practical side of this book shines again, when Christian Cantrell explains how to use cookies for data retrieval and personalization. Christian continues to explore the advanced topics in Flash development in Chapter 9, where he discusses using Flash, Java, and XML. The examples presented in this chapter show how to build cross-platform applications and will be required reading for anyone who has to write code that runs on a full spectrum of devices from tiny handhelds to powerful workstations. If you doubted that Flash can meet these expectations, read this chapter very carefully.

Mike Chambers writes in Chapter 10 about Macromedia Generator (the now discontinued server-side package for generating Flash files) and JGenerator, an open-source Generator clone written in Java. Both tools can be used to create templates which the server turns into complete Flash files using data supplied by the client or pulled at the client's request from external sources. This concept is akin to the PHP-generated HTML pages, only taken to a much higher level. Mike does good job of explaining the basics of these tools, but I wished this chapter was a little longer. Perhaps in the next edition?

In Chapters 11 and 12, Glenn Thomas, Markus Niedermeier, and Fred Sharples explain how to create Flash content for television and for Sony Playstation 2. These two chapters are true gems. Again, plenty of practical examples and tips are shared by the developers who have real world experience.

The last chapter discusses the state of the Flash compatible device market at the time this book went to print and tries to peek into the future. It's too short (just 3 pages), but I don't blame Troy Evans for this. Anyone who tries to predict the future in this market should be very careful not to let imagination run wild.

Part 6 contains seven appendixes on developing Flash applications for the Nokia 9200 Communication mobile phone, a table of Flash-compatible devices, a list of Flash resources, tips of Pocket PC device detection, touch screen kiosks, and more.

I loved clear explanations, practical tips, and lots of good examples. I especially like the chapters on usability. These should be required reading for anyone developing in Flash, not only for those who are writing for mobile devices. It is also one of the best practical guides for usability I've read in a long time. (I'm quite tired of the philosophical musings of many usability authors, who cannot show practical examples of their theories, the authors of Flash Enabled show that the basics can be explained in practice).

The book is very readable, the publisher did not use typical page count expansion tricks (lots of white space on a page) and printed it on good quality thin paper, so the book is not a heavy and thick tome like many other "definitive" tomes that fill the bookstores today.

Summing up, I highly recommend this book and give it 5 stars out of 5 on my scale. It's an excellent, well written, and essential resource for anyone contemplating Flash development for mobile or embedded devices. It is well worth its price of $49.99, but of course you can probably get it on-line at a discount.

(PS. There is no CD attached to this book, but it doesn't need one, all examples are on the Web, where they should be.)
Get it from Amazon