Rating: 
Summary: DragSlideKickAss
Review: Anyone who has ever seen one of Brendans talks over the last couple of years will want this book without even reading the reviews. Sure enough, DSF is very much in Brens inimitable style. The book is written with a knowledge and a passion seldom found in this kind of publication and far from being a set of exercises for designers to follow, this book really will give a good foundation in actionscripting to even the most scriptophobic designers. If you are a Flash designer, this book WILL make your life easier.
Rating: 
Summary: A must have book!
Review: As a public teacher, I own a number of Flash books, and read through even more at the local B&N. This is a definite must-have book for incorporating common designer techniques. With many application-type books, there is an expectation that the reader is familiar with coding, specifically C/C++ syntax as well as the basics of even-driven coding, parent/child relationships & inheritance. While this book gives a quick overview, it is recommended a beginner or intermediate course in C++ be a pre-requisite. Many of the errors were very difficult to locate in the text and web site. This is not a book to teach you coding, its really a book to teach you how to apply existing coding practices to the world of actionscripts. While Hillman Curtis got Brenden the "go" with New Rider publishing, they are not to be compared with each other. Brenden's book is a coding book (backend), Hillman's book is more the marketing aspects of why to design, with the "front end" timeline and move object generation of Flash. Both are must have book, along with a Flash Magic book (pick your flavor). Always remember that the real learning comes from breaking the code down, trying new things, and asking yourself "what-if." This book is great for seeing coding from a designers perspective, and attaching function calls, and array-based object coding to Flash in a unique way. I'm definatley better as both a coder, and actionscripter from reading it.
Rating:
Summary: A must have book!
Review: As a public teacher, I own a number of Flash books, and read through even more at the local B&N. This is a definite must-have book for incorporating common designer techniques. With many application-type books, there is an expectation that the reader is familiar with coding, specifically C/C++ syntax as well as the basics of even-driven coding, parent/child relationships & inheritance. While this book gives a quick overview, it is recommended a beginner or intermediate course in C++ be a pre-requisite. Many of the errors were very difficult to locate in the text and web site. This is not a book to teach you coding, its really a book to teach you how to apply existing coding practices to the world of actionscripts. While Hillman Curtis got Brenden the "go" with New Rider publishing, they are not to be compared with each other. Brenden's book is a coding book (backend), Hillman's book is more the marketing aspects of why to design, with the "front end" timeline and move object generation of Flash. Both are must have book, along with a Flash Magic book (pick your flavor). Always remember that the real learning comes from breaking the code down, trying new things, and asking yourself "what-if." This book is great for seeing coding from a designers perspective, and attaching function calls, and array-based object coding to Flash in a unique way. I'm definatley better as both a coder, and actionscripter from reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Has Its Ups and Downs
Review: As others have stated, this book has errors, and what's worse those errors are not even pointed out on the book's website. The least the author/publisher could do is keep the website up-to-date. The good part is this book does contain some interesting effects with ActionScript, but this is not a book for ActionScript beginners. It is for people with either some background in ActionScript already, or with JavaScript. Otherwise, you will be frustrated very quickly. The quality of the physical publication is quite high with excellent paper stock, full color throughout and long book width. New Riders, to their credit, rarely produces cheap physical products. In all, this book has some good meaty content, but poor technical editing to catch the errors mars its overall usefulness; hence the mixed review.
Rating:
Summary: Has Its Ups and Downs
Review: As others have stated, this book has errors, and what's worse those errors are not even pointed out on the book's website. The least the author/publisher could do is keep the website up-to-date. The good part is this book does contain some interesting effects with ActionScript, but this is not a book for ActionScript beginners. It is for people with either some background in ActionScript already, or with JavaScript. Otherwise, you will be frustrated very quickly. The quality of the physical publication is quite high with excellent paper stock, full color throughout and long book width. New Riders, to their credit, rarely produces cheap physical products. In all, this book has some good meaty content, but poor technical editing to catch the errors mars its overall usefulness; hence the mixed review.
Rating:
Summary: Finally! The Designers point of view.
Review: Brendan Dawes hit a perfect score in my opinion! DragSlideFade, is the perfect addition to any flash designers arsenals! the step by step explanations are just what the doctor ordered. Designers can now test the potential of Flash 5. DragSlideFade has prepared me for the next level, ActionScript the Definitive Guide by Colin Moock.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed, but a good place to start
Review: Despite its flaws, DSF is an approachable, friendly text. Admitably, DSF is chock full of flaws in the code. I came to it with no previous programming skills, and limited Flash experience. That said, DSF got me going. It introduced fundamental coding concepts and de-mystified a ton of things for me. Frankly, I found the errors frustrating at first, but once I logged on to the DSF forum and learned that I was not alone (nor crazy), the errors proved to be valuable learning tools. DSF gave me enough foundational information that I could debug the errors in the book -leading to an enhanced learning experience. When the code failed, I was forced to go over it line by line and see where the problems were.That process made me learn Action Script better than I had expected. I had to work rather methodically to get through it, but in the end, I'm a better action-scripter for it. If you are looking for ready-made formulas, go to Flash Kit. If you want to learn, get a book -even this one and get down to work.
Rating: 
Summary: Book not as user friendly as I had hoped
Review: Do not buy this book if you are a beginning flash user. It is definately targeted towards the intermediate user who has a rudimentary knowledge of actionscript. I have done some basic action script in the past and I still found the book a bit hard to follow more than once...it assumes the user knows a lot without explanation. There are also many errors in the book as well...take this excerpt from the "dragslidefade" online forum: "I too was looking forward to this book. It was a cool idea but it does contain an unusual amount of errors. These are things such as discrepancies between screen grabs and text, code errors and places where all three come together and you just get lost. Sorry but the book seems to have been rushed out without being checked properly. This should have been a primary concern - especially when it is aimed at people who are learning Flash 5 which can be a confusing and frustrating experience in its own right at times." It's a nice looking book, but you know the old adage...In my opinion, the book is just not as "designer friendly" as it claims to be, especially if you're new to Flash. I'm sure there are a lot of designers out there who will love this book...I'm just not one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Just what Flash designers have been waiting for - Fantastic!
Review: Fantastic Book! This book doesn't pretend to be the definitive, or the bible, or promise to teach you everything you need to know in 24 hours. Better than those types of books, it does exactly what it says on the tin! This book should definitely be in your Flash library If you are a designer who has envied sites that show off beautiful fluid motion, and wondered how they do it, then go no further. Brendan Dawes reveals that you don't have to be a programmer, or spend the next year learning ActionScript in order to create interactive, fluid motion Flash movies. This book was top of my list of new books to get, it is exactly what I want. Clear, concise, easy to understand explainations, delivered as if it is a friend explaining the techniques to me.
On top of the quality of the content, the quality of the book is great too! A lovely touchy, feely book. Great, great, great. Just what the Flash designers have been waiting for.
Rating: 
Summary: Umm... Where's the meat?
Review: First of all the book is beautiful as it seems New Riders likes to put 'em out. I'm all for coffee table books. But not when it comes to Flash design. I want to read code to make me think about other code, and more code on top of that. I want my coding to improve so that my imagination won't be stifled as my skills won't warrant heavy creative ideas yet. I like nice design, and I am by no means a great scripter, but I think that this book went about 40% of the way that it should have gone. This book is pretty vanilla and full of fairly useless examples. There are quite a few coding errors throughout and overall I get a lot of eyecandy with nothing to hold it up. Brendan and Hillman have great reputations... but what's this book all about. Sorry - I just didn't like it. I wanted a lot more.
|
