Macromedia Studio 8: Training from the Source

Product Details :

Author : Shaowen Bardzell, Jeffrey Bardzell, Bob Flynn
Paperback: 560 pages
Publisher: Macromedia Press (January 31, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN: 0321336208
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches




Book Description:

Learn by doing! Macromedia Studio 8: Training from the Source provides a comprehensive, working introduction to the most powerful Web design and development suite available. Starting from the ground up, you’ll build two Web sites. In the first half of the book, you’ll combine the strengths of Macromedia Flash, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver to create an attractive, yet maintainable site. In the second half of the book, you’ll focus on building a powerful and dynamic user experience by combining Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver, Contribute, FlashPaper, and ColdFusion. The enclosed CD-ROM contains all the files you need to complete the projects, plus completed files for you to compare with your results and use as models for future projects.

You learn how to:

• Optimize graphics in Fireworks, balancing quality and file size
• Design in a standards-compliant, all XHTML-CSS workflow
• Insert and format text, images, and CSS layers in Dreamweaver
• Master multimedia concepts, such as timelines, libraries, and file architecture
• Create Flash animations, using frame-by-frame and tweened animation techniques
• Create functional buttons using Flash symbols and ActionScript
• Integrate video into Flash projects
• Use ColdFusion to display live database data on a Web page
• Send data in and out of Flash movies to server scripts and databases
• Leverage the power of Contribute to maintain, distribute, and control Web content and FlashPaper to create, share, distribute, and use documents in a secure, universal format

About the Author
Shaowen Bardzell, Ph.D. currently is Visiting Assistant Professor of sport communications and sport informatics in the Department of Kinesiology at Indiana University, specializing in digital media and virtual communities. She has published on application development and multimedia authoring for Macromedia Press and Wiley, including being the co-author of the previous edition, Macromedia Studio MX 2004: Training from the Source.

Jeffrey Bardzell, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Indiana University School of Informatics Human-Computer Interaction Design program, focusing in the areas of new media and design criticism. He has developed many courses and authored numerous books on Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, and ColdFusion, including Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 with ASP, ColdFusion, and PHP: Training from the Source, as well as co-authoring the previous edition.

Bob Flynn is the technology director for the System and Accounting Graduate Programs at the Kelley School of Business, the manager of the Indiana University Macromedia User Group, and webmaster for Bloomingfoods Cooperative Grocery. This is his first book with Macromedia Press

Spotlight Reviews :

Reviewer: Solo Goodspeed (Granada Hills, CA United States)
A nice overview of the workflow of Macro/Adobe's well-entrenched, tightly integrated website creation suite; This collection of tutorials is both a good introduction and a decent update to the current versions of Fireworks, Dreamweaver and Flash, without going too deeply into any of those programs (which would be way too much for one book). It's well written, better explained than some books I've read on the subject, with some errors (par for the course with Training From the Source), but nothing too debilitating.

The first half of the book has you designing a site for an organic food provider, creating and optimizing images in Fireworks, incorporating those into Dreamweaver templates, creating page styles (a bit more complex than that would seem), linking pages together, adding interest and interaction in Flash, right up to the point of uploading to publish. With that under your belt, the second half gets more deeply into using Flash as a site creator, though still incorporating DW, delving more into database-driven sites with ColdFusion (not part of Studio 8 but downloadable from Macromedia in a developer's edition); incorporating onsite/offsite work groups with Contribute, and finally preparing the entire package for uploading to a domain. The book takes on the challenge of balancing both a comprehensive and basic real-world-type tour of Studio 8, and pulls it off nicely ..... though definitely allow time for breaks and review.

I found the sections on HTML and ActionScript a bit frustrating, and when a teaching book contains errors it's hard to tell if you're the one doing something wrong; with the current software versions there is no way around some coding and tag orientation, and now that CSS has become such a necessity, we can't expect this toolset to become anything intuitive for some time. Fortunately, with the aforementioned integration, it's at least easier to get a concept of how it all works together, and it's good to see more tutorials appearing that address the workflow of this dedicated web suite and giving us a basic start in just one book.

Again, one star off for proofing (sorry but when a book goes for $45 MSRP it needs to be perfect; MM Press needs beta testers), but better than most from this publisher.

Reviewer: V. Massey (UK)
Having only just recently purchased the Studio 8 suite and having no previous experience of this particular package, I found this book very good for getting to know the basics of Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks, it also covers a very basic knowledge of Contribute.

The book is broken down into small step by step guides on how to complete many tasks and is easy to understand and time is also spent to explain why things are done the way they are.

I felt this book was ideal for me as a beginner to the Studio 8 package and would recommend to anyone else in a similar situation, however now I know the capabilities of the package I realise I have needed to buy further books to expand my expertise however I do not need to buy the very basic books but those which are more targeted to my needs and an Intermediate level.

Overall an excellent quick start guide to Studio 8 and well worth spending time and money on.