Flash Hacks

by Sham Bhangal

If you've ever seen an especially cool Flash effect on the web, gone straight to your trusty Flash book to find out how to do it, then turned away empty-handed--Flash Hacks is for you. This unique book offers a collection of expert Flash tips and tricks for optimization, creating interesting effects, ActionScript programming, sound and video effects, and much more--and you don't need to be an expert to use them (although you'll certainly look...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0596006454
• ISBN13: 9780596006457
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Length: 466 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Flash Hacks - 100 Industrial-Strenght Tips & Tools Book Review

Title: Flash Hacks - 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools Author: Sham Bhangal Publisher: O"Reilly ISBN: 0-596-00645-4 Pages: 452 pages Reviewer: Philip High Rating: 5 out of 5 stars When I encountered the first versions of Flash my impression was of an unnecessarily complex animation program with an obscure interface and REALLY WEIRD drawing tools. I've wanted to say that in public for years and now that I've gotten it off my chest I feel much better, thank you. Yet, Macromedia must have been onto something, since the program has obviously matured into an indispensable tool for creators of dynamic, interactive, multimedia content for the web and beyond. But, as you might expect, the complexity has only multiplied. This book dives right into the issue by forgoing lengthy tutorials and focusing directly on getting results and solving specific problems - 100 of them to be exact. Once inside it is caution-to-the-wind since the only guide lines are "what if" and "whatever works." That's why they're called hacks, after all. It's an approach that works for me, since I'm really just an overgrown novice that has used the program for several years but infrequently. When I do use it I just want to get the job done and don't have the luxury (or patience, maybe?) to search the documentation, learn a comprehensive set of new skills, then figure out how they apply to my current need. And I don't think I'm alone here. Although the book, like Flash itself, is not for the unmotivated, there really is something here for everyone from beginner to veteran. If you are tempted by the promise of shiny new tricks and sweet insider workarounds then you can eagerly and easily search these pages for tasty snacks to digest now and save the heavier helpings for later. The preface offers a useful starting point with a concise overview and clear explanations of the conventions used to organize and demonstrate the text. The book covers a wide range of topics. Twelve chapters are each devoted to specific issues such as Visual Effects, Drawing and Masking, 3D and Physics, Sound, ActionScript, etc., and each contains several related tips. The individual "hacks", although usable by themselves, often relate to material in other examples, and are clearly and conveniently cross-referenced in the text. Many of the longer examples can be downloaded from the books web page http://examples.oreilly.com/flashhks. And, as promised, the tips are pretty nifty. Some are showy, like #33 - Particle Effects. And some are sneaky, like #20 - Use Complex Shapes as Masks (by using a hairline split, invisible to the eye but recognized by the processor, to open enclosed areas.) But even the coolest tricks would be useless if you couldn't understand the instructions. Fortunately that isn't an issue here. The text is easy to read and well organized with clear examples and illustrations. I especially appreciated the tons of URLs to websites with further examples of great Flash work. Another n

100 of the most needed tricks for creative Flash works

Flash MX 2004 creative work depends -in most of it- on tricks and mind digging. However, like other members in the Hack family, Sham Bhangal's book (Flash Hack) has dug the minds and came up with 100 of the most interesting Flash tricks that are distinguished in a very smart way depending on their type. In this book, found a group of the tips and tricks for beginner and professional designers and developers. Beginner designers and developers can develop their ability to create their own tricks through reading this book thoroughly, as beside describing his thoughts within each trick topic, Sham has attached at the end of each trick a Final Thoughts part as a conclusion to ensure that the reader has completely grasped his idea.

Very Worthwhile!

This is a member of the Hacks series published by O'Reilly, a series of books noted for their ability to answer the perennial "gee, I wish I could..." problem. (though for most people this would be phrased a good deal less politely. At least it was for me when I was learning Flash) This book is no exception. I have been using Flash myself since about version 4 and while I don't spend all my time with it, I have developed a talent for finding hidden features and methods in a variety of platforms and programs, and still I was impressed by a number of the techniques outlined in this book. There are some which I have, as yet, not really found a use for, but there are a few that have answered some of the lingering questions about things that I have always found very silly about Flash. The book covers Flash MX 2004, though many of the features are not limited to that version, and where they are the author has made this very clear, in fact the author has kindly translated some of the code examples to earlier versions of actionscript where necessary and/or possible, (well, flash 6 anyway.) The organization of the book is also a point in its favor as a reference work for the "alternatively trained" professional. Where many manuals and instruction books are arranged by tool, this book is organized by result. This is a boon to those of us who, having a problem with (for example,) sound, will go through the manual for all the elements to do with sound functions, only to find that the bit that we needed is covered under UI. There are also workflow tips, neat tricks, performance enhancers, Flash bug workarounds, undocumented features, and even tips about how to prevent opportunistic theft of your flash content. There is not room to cover all of the 100 hacks available to you, and even the range of the chapters is quite extensive. Nor does it make much sense to cover all of it in a linear way, as this is probably not how you will read this either. When I first picked up the book, I went down the table of contents and spent the next couple of minutes rifling back and forth through the book going "Aha!" and "ohhh..." This of course makes covering the book in a general way something of a headache. For me, some of the most interesting tips were those devoted to the animation part of the workflow. Despite being formally trained as an animator, my introduction to Flash was primarily from the coding direction. As a result, Hack #74, External Script Editors was of only passing interest to me as I stopped using the internal script editor long ago. Hack #62, Right and Middle Mouse Buttons, well, I use a Macintosh, and tend to regard other mouse buttons with some suspicion (or at least scorn.) All of Chapter 9, Performance and Optimization, however, should be required reading for all Flash developers. Most of us will know some fraction of the tips here, but will benefit immeasurably from having read the other one or two that we did not previously kno

Broaden your use of Flash MX2004

Have you seen the Hacks series from O'Reilly? Great stuff! I've yet to be disappointed with this series. While most of the information does not really qualify as a hack in the traditional sense, meaning you are not mucking with the actual API or backed of the tool, the books are chock-full of little workarounds, fresh attacks on old problems, and some incredible tips that most users won't have found on their own. Sham Bhangal delivers 100 excellent tips on using Flash MX 2004 and Professional. I think my absolute favourite is Hack #61, Amit's Dials. This little gem shows how to create some interactive controls for tweaking visual and dynamic effects during the authoring process. The idea is to build the basic functionality of your effect through scripting, add these controls so you can fine-tune the effect, and copy the settings back into the script for permanent hardwiring. There are tons of uses for this tip alone, and it's not complicated. The beauty of this hack is in the fact that it's something most, if not every, designer and developer should know about, but very few use. The time and frustration savings are immense. But the book is overflowing with things like this. Tips on optimizing and working within performance constraints; deciding when to use math versus traditional animation; caveats and gotchas and hidden bits of wisdom... It's in here! How about adding speech synthesis to your Flash application? Need an autocomplete function for a text field? How about tapping into some undocumented ActionScript? Well, keep reading - you'll find all of that in Sham's book. The greatest value of Flash Hacks is the insight from someone who has been with Flash for a long time. Bhangal identifies both common and unusual circumstances that designers and developers might encounter, and provides not only great solutions, but good explanations on why a problem exists and the logic behind coming up with an answer. After working through a few of the hacks, you begin to see Flash in a new light, and new problems or challenges are not quite so daunting. A little perspective shift, maybe step outside of Flash for a bit, and you have a whole new toolbox at your disposal. Structurally, the Hacks books are similar to the Cookbook series, also by O'Reilly. However, the intent is a bit different in that the information tends to be much more flexible and covers a wider variety of challenges. The hacks are numbered and grouped logically, and the index makes a good attempt at referencing not only the hack titles, but some identifying keywords that are more generic, thus more likely to be looked up. Of course, we'd all like an index that pretty much includes every word in the main text, but I digress... Smile Sham's language is easy to follow, though there are some leaps of faith here and there. Some of the descriptions assume a higher level of familiarity with either ActionScript or web architecture in general, but this shouldn't be much of a problem for anyone

100 useful Flash tips and tricks

The art of making a great Flash movie is all about taking a restricted set of graphics tools and using tricks to make it look as if amazing things are happening. And about finding a way to do that in a small movie that loads quickly. This is no easy feat and it boils down to finding innovative solutions. This book comes with one hundred of these innovative solutions. And if you are a Flash developer it's well worth the money to get these unique techniques wrapped up in this tight form. I strongly recommend this book for any Flash developer.