Frankly, I had hoped that a book on "100 Essential Techniques" would be more useful than this. Basically, if you have ANY other book on Flash, then you don't need this one.

Imagine a book on "100 Essential Driving Techniques" that includes separate listings for "Unlocking the car door", "Adjusting the mirror", etc. and you'll get an idea of what this book covers...

Sometimes, I think we get so wrapped around the axle about ActionScript programming that we forget about what Flash can do as a creative tool. This book is here to remind us. Aimed squarely at the Flash program, the book includes a tour of the interface along with techniques for using the drawing tools, getting started with keyframe animation, using filters and fills, importing artwork from various sources, working with sounds and bitmaps, and working with and exporting video in Flash and Quicktime formats, exporting still images, etc. The book ends with some instruction on using ActionScript, the Script Assist, and debugger. It includes lots of useful techniques designed to get people started right away and to help people get the most out of the program. Well worth the money, but not much here for advanced users.

I have been trying to learn flash for a few months now. I first used another book by Todd Perkins about flash and I found it very confusing. The tutorials and instructions it told me to follow often didn't work like I expected and I was forced to read the book page by page, paragraph by paragraph to gain any sort of understanding. On a whim, I bought THIS book to see if it was helpful at all. And it was so helpful. It gives you the essential information, without giving you information overload. Each lesson is a stand-alone lesson, so you can apply the teachings to your current project or follow along with the book. It is organized in such a manner that it gives you a complete and straight-forward understanding of the program. I was so confused by the program after reading that other book and this book cleared up any misunderstandings I had and made the program seem so much easier and more accessible than I ever thought it could be. I highly recommend it

Si estas iniciando con Flash o tan solo necesitas desempolvar tus recuerdos de cuando en cuando este libro es recomendable. Ten en consideracion que este libro NO TE ENSEÑARA como manejar la herramienta. Te proporciona nociones basicas que a veces pasamos por alto y asi quizas puedas lograr un mejor uso de Flash, pero no es el libro milagroso que te hara un maestro. Esta bien organizado, indice claro y cada tip documentado de forma correcta para que consultes y ejecutes. Recomendado para principiantes y personas que ya tengan conocimiento y tiempo usando la aplicacion. Si eres un Pro, seguramente sera mas referencial que otra cosa, por que no sacaras mucho mas de lo que ya sepas.

At 237 pages to cover 100 techniques this book covers a lot of ground very quickly. Each "technique" or topic is covered in 2 or 3 pages. It aims to present the most useful skills for using Flash as opposed to being a comprehensive guide to the program. Still, It starts at the very beginning of using Flash with the basics of the interface and briefly covers virtually every aspect of the program: drawing tools, symbols and movie clips, using the timeline, masking, filters, importing artwork from other Adobe products, sound, video, basic Actionscript and components, and publishing.

As an intermediate level user of Flash my first impression was that this book doesn't cover much I didn't already know. However, I did learn things even in some of the more basic chapters. Many of the techniques also have sidebars with tips that help to demystify some of Flash's more unintuitive features or improve usability. For example, in an early topic on Setting Movie Properties, the sidebar explains the importance of filling out Title and Document fields to improve search engine indexing.

The introduction says that the book should help readers "understand how Flash `thinks' and how it approaches tasks." With topics covering things like how to choose between using groups and symbols and between graphic symbols and movie clips, troubleshooting broken tweens, differentiating between symbol and movie timelines I would say it does do a good job of introducing the many unique concepts in Flash.

Some of the techniques are presented with instructions along the lines of tutorial exercises, but most are presented as descriptions with explanations to help readers decide between various methods and options.
There is only a bare minimum of information on the use of Actionscript. It will help beginners to add very basic interactivity and it does include topics on the use of components. But this is not a book for developers with programming expertise looking for Actionscript techniques.

I would have found this book very helpful when I was first learning Flash. For intermediate users who are fairly familiar with the design side of Flash it might be worth borrowing from a library or user group to pick up a few tips. It might also be useful to Actionscript programmers who would like to understand the design interface better.

Tucson Adobe Users Group