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The Ultimate Authorware Tutorial: An Interactive Book and Cd-Package

The Ultimate Authorware Tutorial: An Interactive Book and Cd-Package

List Price: $79.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not for the novice
Review: Although I know something of authorware. This book left me in the dark at times. The book contains a number of words spelled incorrectly, which you would think, for the price, would have been edited more thoroughly. At times you have to read and re-read passages to try to figure out what is going on. The tutorials given are not thorough enough. It would be nice to know what one is doing and get into more detail. Most of the book is not really a tutorial, it is more informational.

Rating: 0 stars
Summary: Some Orientation Help for Selecting Our Book
Review: As an author and the editor of this book I would like to give a potential reader some insight into our strategy and motivation for writing The Ultimate Authorware Tutorial. This may assist you in your decision on purchase.

Authorware is a very powerful tool. Its potential depth as a working environment depends almost entirely on the "author" and less on the "ware". We, the authors, are very much aware of this, having spend years using the software, teaching any number of people at various levels, how to use this product, and last but not least, helping Macromedia develop it. We know that each reader has a different level of knowledge and requirement pertaining to Authorware. One might even say, there are different levels of relationship to this tool. At the beginning on this relationship one needs something to familiarize oneself with the tool and how to get some straight forward tasks done. I personally praise Nick Roberts for his excellent efforts in creating a magnificent book for doing just this. I also heartily recommend any reader with a beginning relationship to use Nick's work. This also goes for any of the other fine books on Authorware.

We also know from experience, that most users rapidly reach a level of relationship, in which they need more complex applications. Let us look at an example. Just image you want to screen your international work force about their understanding of a certain subject, because this will be a major focus for the coming year(s). You have decided to use a multiple-multiple choice quiz to make an overall assessment of personal knowledge and specific insight into certain aspects needed to complete this major objective. According to the individual response, the user will be moved into different modules and levels of training. Their progress will be tracked as they proceed through the training modules. Later you intend to identify an internal circle of high performers to be involved in creating an international sales support team. This is a little more than a "Show and Tell" presentation as you can imagine, but also is a good kind of project for Authorware Attain. This build will need interactive quizzes, exercises and tables, simulations, databases with information, cross references, some "Show and Tell", various types of evaluation processes, etc.

To build this application we will need to understand more about designing such projects, how Authorware works, and how to use this tool to complete such tasks. Of course we cannot explain to you, step by step, how to complete this explicit task - for that one must be directly involved in the "authoring" process. But we have tried to supply the reader with an overall matrix for such planning and checklists to assist you on your way.

Furthermore this certainly means understanding functions and variables, in order to modify existing templates and to create the tailored environment you need. It means building expressions to enable the type and level of interaction you will need. We have therefore tried to do just this and step-up a user into this "user-level". In this conjunction allow me to reflect on some Authorware history, not because I want to impress someone. Joe Ganci's book on variables and functions for Authorware 3 was, and still is, the bible for understanding this essential area of programming. Many of the added functions and variables build into Authorware Version 4 and Authorware Attain came out of Joe's diligent work on earlier versions and lead to the expansion of Authorware functionality enabling Version 4 to become a true drag and drop environment, which eventually let Nick Roberts so beautifully show you just how to. We have (particular thanks to Jeff McGuire and Dan Clinger for their contribution), included a number of ShowMe exercises, built on modified expression, to let a reader explore this vast world of possibilities. There are, of course, many more such exercises and templates available on the web (s. book for source references).

But we did not stop there. Authorware Attain offers you, for the first time, a wonderful way to automate such complicated templates by making them Knowledge Objects (KOs). So why not learn how KOs work from the people, who originally created them for Macromedia (thank you, Wades Wells and Phillip Kerman)? Understanding Knowledge Objects is very valuable. There is a wonderful library of them on the web (s. book for reference URLs). Between understanding how they are created and how to build expressions almost anyone with a little bit of patience and foresight can take a KO and modify it to fit their needs. What a wonderful way to save time and effort in building your complex Authorware piece!

Another new aspect of Authorware Attain is the connectivity. Authorware Attain is truly made for the web. Not only for delivery, but also for functionality. This is, of course, a very complex subject. We tried to focus on two essential aspects of this: How to use Active X as a source of support and automation of many hard to program functions, and how to design and set up your application for the web.

Once again understanding the generic use and build lets you be able to do hands on modification of an Active X plug-in. I think Stefan van As has explained this eminently important feature with a clarity that any alert reader will appreciate. As to web design and set-up, I only hope that the concise run-though helps the reader and the webmaster overcome some of the pitfalls that do await you, while going through this exercise.

I hope that this insight will help you, dear reader, in understanding the content of our book and assist you in making your choice. We know that there is much more to be done in this direction, but also are pleased to know, that The Ultimate Authorware Tutorial has opened the gate to allow any Authorware user "to go on beyond Zebra".

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The Ultimate Authorware Tutorial : A Complete Waste
Review: As an experienced Authorware user, I am continually seeking advanced material for the my trade as an educational resource developer. This book is perhaps the worst written and ill logically conceived book since Guttenberg. My advice, save your money. Mr. Schifman and Mr. Gancy should be ashamed of them selves.

Rating: 0 stars
Summary: The Ultimate Guide to Authorware Attain
Review: Authorware Attain is a key tool for the development of media-rich interactive learning applications. This book with companion CD-ROM takes you beyond the usual handbook and explains how to make use of the ultimate potential of Authorware Attain to create interactive multimedia and computer-based training projects for delivery on the Web, LANs and CD-ROMs. This book is divided into a compendium and a workshop to facilitate its use as a learning tool and reference manual: both for those just starting to explore the advanced usage of Authorware Attain and for skilled users, who now seek to get the most from Authorware Attain. The main issues taken up by this tutorial include the application of Active X Controls, techniques of database binding, the use of libraries and templates (Knowledge Objects), variables and functions and a look at Pathware Attain. The companion Windows-only CD-ROM provides both tutorials and useful tools for building new applications.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This is not the ultimate tutorial.
Review: Don't be fooled by the title -- this is not the ultimate tutorial. You get very little instruction or practice developing actual projects that contain text, graphics, animations, interactions, branching, functions or variables. What you do get is a little information about a lot of different things that won't get you started producing effective training. Even the advanced topics on Knowledge Objects, database, and ActiveX will leave you frustrated and hungry for more information. I got more out of Nick Robert's The Official Guide to Authoware 4 and Orson Kellogg's Authorware 5 Attain Authorized, that together cost less than this book. After spending more that 80 bucks and 2 days studying its contents, I felt bamboozled.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Definitely a Must Have
Review: I approached my evaluation from 2 levels; from a Beginner's point of view, and as an Experienced Developer/trainer, which is where I fall. In both cases, I found this book to give excellent information from evaluating a project all the way through the final stages of your project, tackling such topics as CMI, ODBC, Web based delivery, XTRA's, ActiveX, and More!. This book is not designed to do your project for you, its designed to show you how to think through the stages of Multimedia Development. Knowledge is power, and in this case, this book is very powerful. The examples on the CD that come with the book are outstanding. They show common problems then show you how to overcome them. I rate this book as one of the best I have seen for Multimedia Devlelopment. You CAN teach old dogs, new tricks.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: If I could give it fewer stars, I would
Review: I bought this (quite expensive and surprisingly small) book thinking I would learn how to use Authorware. The book is definitely not for beginners. It assumes you already are a skilled Authorware user, and discusses mostly advanced topics. Since I have no Authorware skills, I cannot comment on how well it handles these advanced topics, but I have read other reviews by advanced readers and they were none too impressed also. It is hard to say what exactly is the target audience for the book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The Ultimate Disappointing Authorware Tutorial
Review: I think the title says it all but anyway here's an objective review in more detail. To begin with the book is very thin for the price...318 small sized pages.

The first 26 pages are just general considerations regarding computer based training...information that anyone requesting this book will know already...rip out these pages.

pages 28-64 contain information on scripting but it is incredibly basic to anyone with a background in IT and could be condensed into half the number of pages...still these pages are OK.

The next chapter on knowledge objects - pages 65-87 contain some useful info but only really gives you a smattering of what you were expecting. Also its very hard work following what they are saying...not enough diagrams...far too wordy...and many grammatical mistakes which are annoying...in fact the grammatical errors and typos apply right throughout the book.

Pages 89-231 contain peripheral information on things like activeX, CMI, packaging for the web etc. - by peripheral I mean none of it is about building the applications themselves...some of this info is useful (especially packaging for the web). However I bought this book hoping to become an authorware guru who could build complex authorware applications...so to that end these pages are not 100% relevant.

pages 233-318 are individual lessons on different aspects of authorware...these are useful but some of them are long-winded for what they are actually saying. Also some of them are sloppily written and require a lot of effort to follow what the guys are saying.

After reading the book from cover to cover I still feel a long way short of being an authorware guru.

I am now going to play around with authorware myself and try to work out how all the features work etc. I guess I'll have to snoop around a lot on newsgroups etc.

All in all very disappointing especially considering that some of the authors claim to be professional authorware instructors.

I would not advise anyone to buy this book. Keep your money or give it to charity but dont spend it on this book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Not up to date
Review: There have been so many changes in authorware that this book, while handy for it's time, is not a valid resource anymore. IT really lacks because of this, missing on some of the finer points of the newer authorware systems and abilities. Most of the high points of this book are moot now, expecially with the advent of Flash integration, the expanded Calculator Icon, and the higher movie integration.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Designed by Committee
Review: This book is clearly an example of what happens when there are too many cooks in the kitchen. In this case it is many contributors leading to a confusing number of styles. It appears that the book was designed for entry level college courses not for the Authorware developer. What is needed for Authorware productivity is a book similar to Director Demystified by Jason Roberts and Phil Gross.


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