Flash MX: A beginner’s guide

According to his bio, Brian Underdahl has written more than 60 books on "all aspects of computing". I strongly doubt this is a positive thing. I*d rather pay for a book by an expert on a subject, rather than a "write-about-anything-for-money". After reading this book, I strongly doubt that Mr. Underdahl use Flash very often.

Publisher: Osborne McGraw-Hill
ISBN: 0072222662
Pages: 402
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First let's make one thing clear - this is no Flash MX book. MX is barely mentioned and very few (if any) MX specific functions are explained. This is a special book. Not that the content is special, but it's not very often that a seasoned author is this much confused about his audience.

The book is as its title says "a beginners guide". I'd like to see the beginner that doesn't drop out on page 5 where words like Instance, Frame, Tweening, Objects and elements, Onion Skin, Motion Guide, Motion tweens are introduced without any explanation. What makes this even worse is that this first chapter is called "Understanding Flash". I'd guess that even a word like Animation would be tough on the total beginner. After all, most people use the word Cartoon when talking about animation.

The fact that this book has the crappiest illustrations I've ever seen in a Flash book, doesn't help much either. They are obviously done in a hurry by Underdahl himself. The author really gets that point across on page 3.

"Flash has the tools you need to create colorful Web images with very little effort. For example, here is a company logo I created for a Web site using Flash in just a few minutes."


Web Design with Style? Brian is obviously no designer, but does he know that? (Faximile from the book)

I guess that text and beautiful logo really tells it all. Brian is no designer. The quality of the illustrations in the book does not rise above this level. What really bugs me about this book is that it seems very poorly planned. Throughout the whole book, the reader is constantly asked to use functions and features that have never been explained. The explanation is usually somewhere else in the book, but it's never where you'd need it as a beginning user. Once found, the explanations are usually good and get the point across.

I'd say that the author is confused about his audience. This book obviously is not for the total beginner. You cannot ask a beginner to use something that was never explained to solve a task. On the other hand, this book cannot be for anyone with knowledge about drawing programs. Anyone with only slight experience from any other program would understand that "It is always a good idea to check the current color selections before you begin using one of the drawing tools"?

The book also explains you important facts like "[Flash] was called Shockwave. Later, the name was changed to Flash. Generally speaking, Shockwave and Flash are the same thing." I'd bet that many users of the current Director 8.5 Shockwave Internet Studio would be pissed reading that. Come on… Authoring a book about Flash and not knowing what Director is? This was taken from page 3 of the book and I must say it sort of set the tone of this review.

This is one of those "learn it all"-books that is supposed to teach you all there is to know about Flash during its 388 pages. Most of these books fail, but none as bad as this one. The ActionScript section (one quarter of the book) is a poor introduction to scripting. Many community websites will offer better tutorials than this. For a seasoned programmer, this might do as an introduction to ActionScript. A total novice would not understand anything about loops without a proper example. Functions will probably still be a mystery after a half-page explanation with important parts of the script missing and no introduction on passing arguments.

I simply cannot recommend this book to anyone. It is messy and lacks focus. This book will teach you the basic skills, but almost any other beginner's book will be better. For a book from Osborne/McGraw-Hill, I would expect more. There is apparently no limit to Underdahls expertise. He has written book on subjects like PS2, Xbox, Microsoft Excel, DOS, most Microsoft OS, Lotus Notes, Quattro Pro, Paradox and even the internet itself. Maybe choose someone with experience for the next book?

PS: We have received another book by Underdahl for review called Flash MX: The Complete Reference. The first looks makes me think that this must be another author, so stay tuned...

Get it now from Amazon, but only if you're desperate...

 

About Jens C Brynildsen

Jens has been working with Flash since version 3 came out. Since then, he's been an active member of the Flash community. He's created more than a hundred Flash games (thus the name of his blog) but he also creates web/standalone applications, does workshops and other consulting. He loves playing with new technology and he is convinced that the moment you stop learning you die (creatively speaking). Jens is also the Editor of this website.

 

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