Part V: Adding Basic Interactivity to Flash Movies

Learn how to start using Flash actions to create interactive and responsive presentations. Get oriented in the Flash 8 Actions panel, which brings back Normal mode as Script Assist (Chapter 18). Use ActionScript in Flash movies to control internal elements on multiple timelines , such as nested Movie Clips (Chapter 19). Use Flash 8 components to create fast, clean interfaces for multipart presentations that also include some of the Accessibility options (Chapter 20).

Part VI: Distributing Flash Movies

You need to learn how to export (or publish) your Flash presentations to the .swf file format for use on a Web page, or within presentations on other formats. Chapter 21 details options in the Flash 8 Publish Settings, and provides tips for optimizing your Flash movies in order to achieve smaller file sizes for faster download performance. If you prefer to hand-code your HTML, then read Chapter 22, which describes how to use the <embed> and <object> tags, how to load Flash movies into framesets, and how to create plug-in detection systems for your Flash movies. If you want to find out how to create a Flash stand-alone projector, or use the Flash stand-alone player, then check out Chapter 23.

Part VII: Approaching ActionScript

Learn the basic elements of ActionScript syntax (Chapter 24), and how to use ActionScript to control properties and methods of MovieClip objects (Chapter 25). Learn about making functions and arrays (Chapter 26), detecting Movie Clip collisions, and using the ColorTransform, Sound , and PrintJob classes for dynamic control of movie elements (Chapter 27).

Part VIII: Applying ActionScript

Get an introduction to runtime MP3, JPEG/PNG/GIF, and FLV loading features as well as how to share and load assets in multiple .swf files (Chapter 28). Start creating Flash movies that send data with the LoadVars object and learn to integrate XML data with Flash movies (Chapter 29). Take control of text fields using new HTML tags, the TextFormat class, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and new anti-aliasing options (Chapter 30). Part VIII includes a detailed chapter dedicated to building a Flash game from the ground up (Chapter 31) and finishes with a chapter of troubleshooting tips and suggested best-practices for project architecture (Chapter 32).

Part IX: Integrating Components and Data-Binding

Find out how to use the many of the User Interface components that ship with Flash 8 to enhance your Flash projects (Chapter 33). Learn how to use the visual data-binding features of the Component Inspector panel and create your own ActionScript code to pass data and events between components (Chapter 34). Finally, build a Gallery component from scratch that works with dynamic PHP scripts to load image thumbnails and display full- size downloadable JPEG images (Chapter 35).

Part X: Expanding Flash

Every multimedia designer uses Flash with some other graphics, sound, and authoring applications to create a unique workflow that solves the problems of daily interactive project development. The bonus chapters in Part X, included on the CD-ROM as PDF files, show you how to manage raster graphics (Chapter 36) and vector graphics (Chapter 37) and how to create content in popular applications such as Macromedia Fireworks, and Adobe Photoshop. This part also covers topics relevant to Flash production using Dreamweaver 8 (Chapter 38).

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Reinhardt R., Dowd S.

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