I know there are s-m-r-t people in this place, and I need someone to point me in the right direction. I am an ASP/SQL/VB programmer that is getting bored yet happy to have a job. I know with ActionScript you can do a lot more with Flash, and I do have a copy of Flash MX obtained legally through my company. My employers don't send IT people to training anymore (thanks Mr. Atta) so going to class at all, especially as it would be on my own dime, is out of the question. I am really looking for the best tutorial books and websites. I do own the Bibles for Flash MX and ActionScript already, but they seem more of a reference than a "STEP BY STEP LEARN FLASH IN 45 MINUTES11!!@" type. he;lp
If you go to www.google.com and enter 'online training flash mx' (without the quotes) you will see sites that offer training online. In addition, I think macromedia has online courses.
I googled a bit yesterday and didn't come back with much beyond Macromedia's online classes which, at the moment, are out of the question. However if I knew they were useful, if someone around here has personal experience with these, I would reconsider. Thanks!
Try webmonkey.com I am pretty sure they have a flash tutorial, though I can't check from work. For some reason our proxy labels that site as sex Edit: I found the link: http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/multimedia/shockwave_flash/index.html
Of the books I've looked at the best flash books seem to be the Friends of Ed books. On a side note, be sure to check out Flash Remoting. It allows you to interact with server side scripts better and retrieve complex data types such as arrays and recordsets. You can also use it to call web services. Very nice if you're used to server side programming.
I know a great place... http://macromedia.elementk.com/ It is called Macromedia University. For $300, you get a year's subscription and they cover EVERYTHING Macromedia - Flash, Dreamweaver, Cold Fusion - plus a bunch of other things like basic HTML, SQL, etc. All of their tutorials are in Flash so they are really easy to use. I learned a ton about Flash from there.
Lots of Flashing at Girls Gone Wild and Mardi Gras, but I think you have to be a natural...and have nice boobs.
For website resources of writing actionscript, I have found nothing better than Colin Moock's site www.moock.org This is the programmer who did the actionscript chapters in The Flash Bible. as for books, start with the Flash tutorials built into the program. Once you do those, you will have a better feel for the organization of the program and what more books you want to buy. I have had Director for 10yrs and Flash for 3 versions, and I have found that there are no good books on Lingo or ActionScript, as Macromedia books stick to the other slick features, and automation. There just isn't much of a call for Lingo and ActionScript to warrant good books, although the inventor of Lingo did finally come out with an O'Reilly book ... that quickly become obsolete, sigh.
When I first started learning Flash, I read some stuff from <a href="http://www.devshed.com/Client_Side/Flash">Devshed.com</a>. It was fantastic. Then, when I needed more specific help, I went to Flashkit.
