Using ActionScript 2.0 Components with Macromedia Flash 8

This is nothing more than a printed version of the documentation that ships with Flash 8. As this is stated in the description of the book, and several of the reviews here, it shouldn't surprise anyone when they receive the book in the mail expecting more. Everything contained in this book can be found in the help files and PDF docs included with Flash 8, but it's still great to have a printed reference that you can actually make notes in and bookmark. The docs could use a little more in the way of examples, but if all you're looking for is a good printed version of the Flash reference materials, this is a good resource.

As others have noted, this book is available as a PDF from Adobe / Macromedia and also in the Help section within Flash. This is also stated in the description of the book, so I wasn't surprised at what I received. If you are the type of person who gets by with online documentation and/or PDFs, then don't buy this book. I am a professional Flash developer and have other Flash developers working for me, and I find printed books indispensable when used in conjunction with the Help system. If you want a single printed volume documenting all of the components that come with Flash 8, then this is the book you want.

What are Flash Components? According to this work's many authors Flash components are "movie clips with parameters that allow you to modify their appearance and behavior" (p. 11). The main purpose of this book is to show you how to use Flash 8 components to facilitate the development of applications while providing a standard, yet customizable, user interface. The first 200 pages of this nearly 1800 page book provide detailed tutorials in all aspects of the Flash components. Familiar Flash components are such user interface controls as scrollbars and scrollpanes; however, there are also non-visual Flash components. The rest of the book is a components language reference that provides information on the edition, usage, parameters, description and examples for each. When I opened this book it was because I was more interested in learning how to more elegantly "skin" existing Flash components. Although I had used scrollpanes and some other interface elements, I had not been able to achieve the look that I desired. Luckily for me, how to modify Flash's existing components, and much more, are elegantly covered in this book's first five chapters. Each chapter provides numerous code examples and tutorials to teach you the in's and out's of using listeners, setting focus and skinning user interface elements. The thorough step-by-step instructions will be invaluable to anyone wanting to learn more about what components are and how to control their look and behaviors. Later chapters in the book cover how to get started in creating your own components. Although for the moment this has less appeal to me, any developer building applications with Flash would find these sections of immense interest.