Flash Magazine > Reviews

ScreenTime - make Mac and PC screensavers

There are many tools for Flash that will let you create screensavers from your SWF files, but only one can create screensavers for the Mac too. Flashmagazine editor Jens Brynildsen reviews ScreenTime.

Animating with Flash MX

For starters, this book is for anyone (and by that I mean beginner level through advanced) who wants to do digital animation. I am a c++ programmer and so I approach flash from a developer's point of view.

Macromedia Flash to the Core: An interactive Sketchbook by Joshua Davis

Joshua Davis' Flash projects are among the most interesting pieces of interactive art on the Web. So it was quite understandable that I wanted to read his 'interactive sketchbook' as soon as I had heard about it. Would it blow my mind? Would it teach me something I did already know?

VectorStyle v1

My first foray into graphics on the PC came in 1993 with the wonderful natural media tools of Fractal Design's Painter. A few years later the same company spun off a product called Detailer which let you use the same tools to paint directly onto a 3D object. Detailer was effectively a plug-in for their 3D modeller, Ray Dream Studio, and this became my introduction to 3D graphics.

Discreet Plasma

Plasma is a brand new 3D program, but it also comes with a solid heritage. The tool is based on Discreets very expensive program 3ds max and our expectations were high. Many Flashmagazine readers have asked us to review this program and I have to say it has been a pleasure!

Macromedia Flash MX Magic

As some of you might recall, I was very pleased with one of the earlier New Riders' Flash Magic books, Flash 5 Magic with ActionScript, and I was really looking forward to reading their new Macromedia Flash MX Magic. The word "ActionScript" has been dropped from the title, and for a good reason, because this book is not only for programmers of ActionScript, but for every user.

Flash XML Studio Lab

XML has become the standard for storing all types of data and is one of the most recognizable languages on the Internet. Flash is the ultimate design tool for visualizations on the web. These two technologies combined are the perfect match for separating data from presentation in a dynamic format.

Macromedia Flash Art, Design and Function

The book is not what the title suggests: "Macromedia Flash; Art, Design + Function". The title should be more like: "A tribute to our own brilliance, and our web development skills." (A bit long, perhaps...)

Skip Intro - Macromedia Flash Usability and Interface Design

Interface design has a great influence on application usability, and that is why both Apple and Microsoft publish length tomes filled with advice on how applications should be designed to make them useable. Developers who follow such advice and use standard user interface components have an easier life than Flash developers, who have to design every piece of the user interface themselves, create their own look and feel, and make the whole thing intuitive and useable.

Flash printer - print to SWF

Ever wanted to convert a Word-document or something like it to SWF format? Now it's easy. Extremely easy in fact, using the Flash Printer from Blue*Pacific Software. Every now and then there comes a tool that makes you say "Brilliant! Why didn't anyone think about this already?"