I cant give this book 1 star because I did learn a few things from it, however having said that I learnt a lot more by 'customising' the exercises and playing with the various tools myself as I went through.

The other reviewers are quite correct in that there has been no proof-reading or technical editing of this book whatsoever.The mistakes are plentiful and unless you have enough knowledge of Flash, are complete showstoppers.One example I can think of is that you are instructed to create a folder for the catalog swf's and call it catalog.Yet when you are instructed to set the source swf in the catalog page to load into the loader, you are told to type in catalog.fla Having put all of those files in a subfolder (as instructed), it wont work unless the path you type is catalog/catalog.fla. Simple example I know but there are enough of these things going on through the book to make it really frustrating. I had some actionscript that wouldnt work so I had a look at the completed file on the CD...well knock me down if there isnt actionscript missing from the book!!

The funny thing is that even when I tried to preview the books completed example files off of the CD, I STILL got error messages that required debugging which means that you are on your own if you want to complete the book from start to finish.

Anyway, this book was a majorly flawed disappointment and waste of a nights drinking money. The framework is there and with great content correctly proof read, with consistency applied throughout, it could have been excellent. I have used other TFS books and they have been excellent, the Fireworks one in particular was a great starting point for me. This book has tarnished the perception I had of the series and having read the reviews for the Actionscript TFS I am loathe to buy another one....

This book has some good information, but is poorly written and fails to explain much about what is going on in the tutorials. With Macromedia's commitment to quality products, I'd expect something much better to bear the name "Training From the Source."

There are MANY typos and grammatical errors. Did anyone proofread this thing?

The book is not all bad, however. I learned a lot from it, but felt like too much was left out. Simple, basic concepts were explained repeatedly, but some of the more important stuff had little to no explanation. Tutorials instruct you to do or write certain important things, without explaining why, or what is going on.

Overall, I think the book is worth about half the cover price. For more in-depth explanation, check out any of the Russell Chun Flash books. His "Flash Advanced" goes together well with this book.

I am now editing my earlier review (below). I have revisited this book after completing training in Dreamweaver, and am now therefore more familiar with the look and logic behind these Macromedia applications. Because of my previous training, I am now able to follow the lessons - and am finding the book useful. However - I still feel this book suffers from extremely poor editing. It often directs you to click on menus or select tools that it has not yet introduced. A beginner would have no idea what to do...

Previous review:

I have used the Adobe "Classroom in a Book" series to learn Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. and found the texts to be fairly interesting, useful, and easy to follow. I bought "Macromedia Flash MX 2004 : Training from the Source" expecting something similar, and could not have been more disappointed.

It's extremely dull, POORLY edited, and most importantly, nearly impossible to follow. I gave up in the second chapter.

According to the credits, this book did have an editor and a technical editor, but I find that difficult to believe.

An excellent beginners guide for non programmers.

This is a book which leads you through a web design project. Like the TFS books on all the Studio programs this one begins with a single goal, that by the end there will be a whole website. The lessons then cover all that is related to putting together a website. For folks who are not interested in using Flash for website design, this book is definitely not the best.

For folks who are... well, my opinion is mixed. Yes, the examples are clearly written, and there is generally a good order of the lessons which help one to better understand the complexity of Flash. The problem is really related to the project itself.

Instead of focusing on the brilliance and uniqueness of Flash, this project teaches you how to mimic what would really be a better site done in Dreamweaver, or even Fireworks. Such Flash based sites as jkrowling.com are wonderfully creative. This project looks like any other html based site, except it uses Flash. You learn to mimic html and javascript in creating drop down menus, and other things, leaving me with a sense that I learned... but I am still missing on what Flash is really built to do. There's a complete lack of creativity, and that's what Flash is made for. I don't want to spend twenty hours going through a book that makes me think I could better use Dreamweaver for the same effect.

With this is the tendency to jump from all too basic "make a square and resize it" lessons, to doing complex dynamic interaction which goes beyond an introduction to the program.

This book is about making a project rather than building a solid foundation in Flash. The project they choose is rather dull and doesn't even come close to the creativity found in flash based sites, nor even the fun that the TFS book on Actionscript reveals.

So yes, one does learn and it is well written. But, one is left knowing there are tremendous gaps in foundational knowledge which other books will better cover. When I finished both the books on Fireworks and Dreamweaver I was left thinking I had a good grasp, which could be built through personal practice. With this book I feel like I learned, but am left reaching for different books to really introduce the program in a fuller way.

With so many books on Flash out there, this likely isn't the best choice. Unless, of course, your interest is in using Flash to make a site which looks just like an html based site. Then, it's a fine selection.