| The Reality ColdFusion books are not designed to be read from cover to cover, although you are more than welcome to do so. Each title in this series contains a set of sections; each section is a case study an application explained, analyzed, designed, built, and deployed. Reality Macromedia ColdFusion MX: Flash MX Integration contains the following four sections: Jukebox is just that, a Flash-based jukebox application. It features an intuitive user interface, a data-driven back end, user preferences, and support for real-time audio playback. Expense Reporting is a full-blown application used to track and report business expenses. It features powerful data-entry screens, local data storage, and even support for mobile devices. Email Client is a Flash-based email client that provides the features that would be expected of an email program but in an application that can easily be embedded into other pages and applications. Chat is a real-time chat application. It facilitates one-to-one and one-to-many chat in an intuitive split-screen interface, and employs the new Flash Communication Server. Each section is made up of five chapters: Product Requirements introduces the client and explains the problem to be solved. Initial Thoughts presents the ideas and brainstorming, culminating in a proposed solution. Development walks through the actual development process, pointing out key technologies and exploring implementations as needed. The Solution presents the finished solution and ensures that the objectives were met. Delivery wraps up deployment and delivery, analyzes the successes (and failures), lists what was learned along the way, and suggests plans for future versions of the application. While the sections and applications are presented in order of complexity, starting with the least complex, there are no cross-dependencies, and you are thus free to start at whichever section you wish. However, it is recommended that within each section you do read the chapters in order, starting with the first. |
