Paul Prudence – författare

So you think you''ve got to grips with the features of Macromedia Flash MX?

Welcome to this inspirations upgrade from friends of ED. Upgrade your thinking, upgrade your attitude, and upgrade your standards to take on board the host of exciting features incorporated into this version of Flash.

With this title, we run the gamut of new features, from the Drawing API ("to die for"), through new video compression, Scriptable Masks and Components. We explore the new territory with experimental interfaces, check out the improvements in the 3D arena, and quarry the back-end technologies to see what gems we can turn up!

Some of the best designers in the Web community have concentrated their efforts on this project. This has resulted in the highest caliber of work, including an exclusive insight into the creation of Jim Armstrong''s New York Flash Film Festival final piece.

From the acclaimed team that brought you Flash Math Creativity comes this inspiring volume, full of brand new effects and discussion on what Flash MX is going to do for designers—and where we go from here.

The days of Flash as a creative luxury are long gone. After months of downsizing, Flash creativity has been on a huge rationalization program. It is no longer enough to present animation in millions of colors and a hundred transparencies. It is no longer sufficient to provide interactivity and dynamism for their own sake.

The purpose of this collection is to show how designers have taken Flash and made it work for its supper. What we discover is a series of creations that place Flash at the hub of cutting edge web content.

The end result is a snapshot of Flash as the ideal medium.

In these amazing examples, we see the software pushed to its limits to create unbeatable applications—a collapsible family tree, an interactive video learning system, and a drawing tool, capable of running online!

Beyond this, we dip into the back-end capabilities to look at how to improve Flash still further. Some staple XML and PHP routines are brought in to add a bit of spice, while Flash''s mysterious sharedObject command is hunted down and tamed to create a hybrid Tamagotchi houseplant—perfectly suited to lure surfers back to your website!

It all revolves around Flash and math. It''s what you do in your spare time: just take little ideas and mess around with them. This is a book of inspiration, beautiful enough to leave on the coffee table, but addictive enough to keep by your computer and sneak out while no-one''s looking so you can go back to that movie that you were tinkering with ''til three o''clock this morning. It''s a fun book.

It''s a book of iterative experiments, generative design. Each author does four experiments. Each experiment takes up four pages. We give you the code and explain the essence, then you take away your inspiration and run with it. The purpose of the book is to learn through experimentation because you are inspired to do so, not because someone is telling you to do so.

Follow the fmc site link for more information.