Using Director 7 (Special Edition)

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Summary: Using Director 7 (Special Edition), an Educator's Dream
Review: As an educator in San Francisco who teaches beginning, intermediate and advanced courses in Multimedia design, production and Lingo programming, I was looking for a Director and Lingo book that was well written, comprehensive, used the new Director 7.0 Lingo ("dot" syntax). I read them all and decided that by far Using Director 7 (Special Edition) met all my needs and much, much more.

This book was written with care and concern. All the code (some from his earlier book) was meticulously rewritten with the new Director 7.0 Lingo syntax. The list of web sites in the back of the book give my students and I plenty of supplementary resources. The accompanying CD contains most all of the examples in the book and more.

Some of my favorite exercises in the book include: simulating 3D shapes using the new quad function; hit detection for gaming and other gaming examples; Educational and Business Applications, and Appendix C, Online Resources

There are other books that attempt to cover the scope of material covered in Gary Rosenzweig's book, but none of those succeeds with such elegance and style.

I've already put in my order for Gary's not yet released "Advanced Lingo for Games" -- Given the quality of Using Director 7 (Special Edition) and the quality of his website, I'm confident this will be another gift to both the Director community and it's educators.

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Summary: Not For New Director & Lingo Users
Review: For me the book was only OK reading. The author does a very nice job explaining only a few areas of Lingo & the IDE in depth. The book says it is for the beginner, that is a far cry from the truth. I have learned 3 computer languages which I self taught myself using good books, I know a good, well written book when I read one. A perfect example of one of my many disappointments is when the author introduced a new command and says this makes it easier to read the code but he does not bother to explain the command. A monkey can memorize, I don't want to memorize, I want to learn. The sad thing was that all those commands he does not bother to teach you are in all the chapters to follow which is a real let down. GUESS IT IS TIME TO FIND ANOTHER BOOK!

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Summary: Don't !
Review: Great book - i programmed an interactive essay that returned users grades within 1 hour using two commands ! And im totally new to Macromedia products - you can build interactive radio stations that display company products - like TV - and T-Commerce is around the corner - Get going Y'all - this is SO EASY - and POWERFUL - and WONDERFUL - recently got my first web building contract for a travel company by showing off my shockwave animations ! Get EMPLOYED !!

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Summary: Best Lingo Book Ever!
Review: I have been using Lingo and reading books about it for several years! (a few of them by Gary) This book is the only one that sits on my desktop! It's all you need! And Gary has even gone as far as answering my questions personally via email. This guy knows what he's doing...and the book is loaded with USEFUL EXAMPLES. All I could ask for...is a little more explanation of the dot syntax. Best book so far GARY! Keep up the good work!

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Summary: Don't !
Review: I saw this title at Amazon and it was ranked highly. So I put up the cash... I am still amazed at how many pages can be written to say so little ! The only thing I found in the first 11 chapters is that I can do only basic animations without Lingo. There are only a few screenshots . The first example (Romeo And Juliet) - There is no mention that the file is actually on the CD. The CD itself is full of DEMOS - of which almost none is related to Director!! not even to Macromedia ! so why bother ? There are lengthy descriptions of ideas that can be summed in a couple of lines !! The order is very confused - I am still not sure in what chapter the book really starts. There are no helpful (real life) tips -

I still haven't learnt anything that I could not read in the manual or the helpfile -

I am all too dissappointed and I have lots of things to say about this book - but I am tired now !...

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Summary: Nice overview- little depth
Review: I use Director about 30% of the time during work (otherwise Java and Perl). I learned Director 6 on the fly when I was given a project to complete, and searched for books aimed at an experienced programmer - there were none. Most were of the "this is a mouse" variety. Now, luckily there's this book and the Director/Lingo Nutshell books. One reason I like this book is because the examples are actually written in Director 7 syntax, which I like a lot more than the previous "wordy" Lingo. Also, it includes inspiring demos - the sort that egg you on to build a finished product out of them.

The author actually assumes you can think, and there's a lot of great tips. For example one states that text members have a graphic property (a bitmap representation), which is useful to know. Also, the author writes in a clear, concise manner, and there's no obvious padding in the book. The CD has some useful stuff one it, too.

Most Director books are a letdown, but this one has already paid for itself in time saved.

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Summary: Not for the Beginner!
Review: The book claims it is for beginners--not so. Especially if you are looking for a step by step approach. It comes with a CD, but I am still looking for the "How to use the CD with this book" instructions. More than half of the book is devoted to examples of lingo--not for the novice Director user!

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Summary: This book saved my job
Review: The Special Edition Using Director 7 book is amazing! I couldn't have gotten through my project without it. Everything that the director manual and lingo dictionary left out, Gary put in to this book. I now understand lingo and the way director works and what it can do in many different environments and this has saved me lots of time in troubleshooting and debugging. My company sent me to a very expensive training for lingo and I actually learned more from this book. If I had relied on the director manual alone I would not have completed my hybrid CD and shockwave catalog project on time. Thanks Gary for making it easier! Cameron Smith OddzOn Toys

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Summary: This book saved my job
Review: The Special Edition Using Director 7 book is amazing! I couldn't have gotten through my project without it. Everything that the director manual and lingo dictionary left out, Gary put in to this book. I now understand lingo and the way director works and what it can do in many different environments and this has saved me lots of time in troubleshooting and debugging. My company sent me to a very expensive training for lingo and I actually learned more from this book. If I had relied on the director manual alone I would not have completed my hybrid CD and shockwave catalog project on time. Thanks Gary for making it easier! Cameron Smith OddzOn Toys

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Summary: using Director 7 (special Edition)
Review: This is fantastic book really good lots of examples. Good use of lingo If you are serious about director this is the book I dont beleive that any software book on any subject has the wow that this one does