Chapter 3. Technology Overview

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As you saw in the preceding chapter, designing an application involves mixing user needs with a functional design. You also must use the appropriate technology. This chapter concentrates on the technology available to Macromedia Flash MX 2004 applications. I think it's important to start with a need and then look for a solution. The converse , starting with a hammer and then looking for a nail, will nearly always fail the test of usefulness . This technical chapter is based on the premise that you've already established a need that Flash can solve.

As the first technology chapter, this chapter introduces nearly every concept that appears in the book. This chapter is as detailed as possible without getting into practical exercises. Instead of showing you how , this chapter shows you why . The main goal is to show you a bit of everything so that you can see how things fit together. Don't worry if a topic seems to be glossed over hereit will almost certainly appear later. Sometimes it's best to get the big picture and then come back for details. Although this approach may appear redundant, it will help you synthesize. In any event, think of this chapter as a detailed tour of what follows .

This chapter covers the following topics:

• A technical and visual map to the rest of this bookalmost like an index of what follows

• An introduction to key approaches, including code-data separation, data management and presentation, and modularization

• Notes about configuring your work environment so that you can follow the exercises that appear in upcoming chapters

If you could buy this book in Cliff Notes form, it would be this chapter. Maybe that's not totally accurate because you will find several gems here that don't appear later.

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