Use the basic Flash tools and gain familiarity with the Flash workspace . . .

When you begin to use new software like Macromedia^R Flash^R, you can expect a considerable learning curve. So you read 50 or 60 pages in that big, thick, "everything you wanted to know about Flash" book, you put the book down, take some aspirin and say "There has to be an easier way". Well, the easier way is a book like this one by David Morris.

This book will not teach you everything about Flash, but it will take you step-by-step through the process of making a web site with Flash. The book has many illustrations, the instructions are easy to follow and when you are done you will be familiar enough with Flash that you can make sense of that big, thick book that you were trying to read. Basically, that is the purpose of this little book. So what does this book help you to do? You will create a small website for an imaginary business, use most of the basic Flash tools and gain familiarity with the Flash workspace.

First you draw a few lines and rectangular shapes filled with colors or gradients. Then you add some graphics and text. This becomes the background for the web pages. Next, you are introduced to what layers and symbols are and why they are so important to working efficiently in Flash. The Timeline is what makes the Flash animations, slide-shows and movies work. You will use this Timeline to control the animated text effects that make up the introduction to the website. Next, you make interactive, rollover effects for the menu buttons and use the Flash programming language called ActionScript to dynamically display web pages. Of course, it wouldn't be a Flash website without fancy animation, so you make a slide-show to display the product images for the imaginary business. Finally, you make one of those "loading . . ." progress bar animations and the website is complete.

David Morris has been a website and graphic designer for many years. He was product manager for Macromedia Fireworks^R and Freehand^R, as well as part of the Fireworks development team.