Book Review: Flash CS3 - The Missing Manual

This is the first book in the Missing Manual series we're reviewing and it is also one of few Flash books written by professional tech writers. Is this a good idea? We were actually sceptical after reading just the third sentence.

TITLE: Flash CS3 - The Missing Manual
AUTHORS: E.A. Vander Vee and Chris Grover
PUBLISHER: O'Reilly (12 Jun 2007)
ISBN: 0-59-651044-6
PAGES: 504 b/w
CD: No
PRICE: $23 US / £17.49 UK
Click here to order (but please read the full review before doing so)

Most flash books up until now have been written by users of the program. Reading the first pages of this book, you get a clear sense that the authors E. A. Vander Veer and Chris Grover are professional computer book authors, not avid Flash users. This can be both good and bad. This is what the book tells about the authors former experience:

• Chris Grover (who is probably not the same as this Chris Grover) has written similar books (Missing Manual) for Word 2007, Office 2007 and Digital Photography.
• E. A. Vander Veer has written Missing Manuals for Powerpoint 2007, Office 2007, but also Flash 8.

Both have a decent track record writing technical books, but do they really know Flash?

The third sentence of the book claims that Flash is "an alternative to Java for creating vector-based Web graphics." Really? I have never heard of anyone doing vector graphics in Java that switched to Flash? I know I'm being difficult here, but sentences like these make me think they do not really know what they are writing about.

Even the introductory on animating give this impression: "It's pretty incredible to think about it. A few hundred bucks and a few hours spend working with Flash, and you've got an animation that, just a few years ago, you'd have to pay a swarm of professionals union scale to produce". I hate to break this sweet sounding sentence, but creating a good looking animation that can compare to that of professional animators will take you way longer than "a few hours" to produce, even if you are using Flash.

This is just too simple and tells me that the author has never really created an animation. I'm certain that this will feel like an insult to any professional animator reading the book. These are just a couple examples of things that annoyed me when reading the book. I could have written several pages on annoyances just about the introductory chapter where they explain how to click a mouse and that the book will be ideal for anyone except the "super-advanced-programmer".

Is this book really that bad?

No. When you get to chapter 3, it gets much better. This is where most of the foolish jokes and inaccuracies end. They do however return in the first chapter about Actionscript (chapter 9) with the brilliant words "Unfortunately, mastering a scripting language like ActionScript is a bit harder than mastering a regular programming language because you have to memorize not only the language itself (including syntax and basic programming concepts such as variables, functions, parameters and so on) but also the scripting object model...".

The one that wrote this can not possibly know anything about programming or programming languages. EVERY programming language requires that you learn the totally basic stuff mentioned. It's the foundation! NONE of them require that you memorize everything about the language and how you use it. Every good coder will use the built-in help or a reference book when using new parts of the language or it's extensions.

The book is divided into four main parts:

• Creating a Flash Animation
• Advanced Drawing and Animation
• Adding Interactivity
• Delivering Your Animation to Its Audience.

It is well structured, but I would say it tries to cover too much ground in just 462 pages.

The first chapter covers the basics of navigating the Flash IDE. Most other books on Flash do this, but this book adds a twist - they try to explain what every panel is used for. I'm not sure that's a good idea, but I could be wrong in thinking that novice users could get scared by this? Most of the chapters in parts 2 and 4 are quite good, but the chapters that mention Actionscript do this in an odd manner. Behaviors and events are put directly on buttons throughout the book without explaining this cannot be done using ActionScript 3.0 (AS3). To use any of the code in the book, the user will have to make an ActionScript 2.0 (AS2) file. My guess is that every reader of this book will see an error message when they try to do the exercises in these chapters unless they remember a very brief mention of this at the start of the book. Problem is - at this point they did not know what Flash was and certainly not Actionscript...

For a brand new book on Flash CS3, this is an interesting choice. It's not wrong to use AS2 in CS3, but it gives the book a "dated" feel since this could all have been done using Flash 8. It is however much easier to explain how to add interactivity with AS2 and Behaviors rather than AS3, so I do understand why they opted for this path. One of the ActionScript chapters explain a somewhat more complex snippet. This code is AS2 and explains generic objects as listeners for events. I think this would have been much easier to explain conceptually if they used AS3 instead, but not mixing the two is probably wise.

Conclusion

Honestly - this is one of the few introductory Flash books I would not recommend to new users. Most Flash books are today written by academics or seasoned Flash users that have teaching experience. These know what concepts that are hard to understand for users new to the program. It's obviously not been a wise idea to have so called "professional writers" do this book. It also puzzles me that an O'Reilly book has such an amount of just plain errors. Some images do not fit with the accompanying text, referrals to pages are wrong and some info is downright wrong.

Parts of the book are good, but the failed attempts at humor annoy me and there are simply too many errors. They are so many that I could probably write a quite long humorous essay about them. Some chapters display a pure lack of skill at using Flash and knowledge of other peoples professions. Another thing is the fact that this book mentions way too many times how hard it is to learn and use Flash. While it may be true that the authors felt this way while writing, it's not very wise to project this onto the readers, is it? Sorry - we would rather grab a copy of one of these books.

 

 

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