The condition of this book was much poorer than I had expected. I have ordered books in the past that were listed in "good" condition, and when they arrived, they were nothing less than new. That's what I expected. The cover was cut with a matte knife (I assume in unboxing) and it was torn as well. I guess a little tape will fix it. I was just hoping for something in a little better condition.

This book is straightforward and gives easy-to-follow instructions which can be applied to fun and professional-looking projects.

It was all going well to chapter 6 or 7 ( the code for mouseover buttons example) and my second restart. Midway through attempt three I couldn't get to the underlying rationale that they were trying to impart and went looking for an alternate. The alternate managed to show alternate ways to make resuable button object in code that made sense and wasn't a punishment designed to enforce retention by setting examples that required the same item multiple times. Are we learning concepts or muscle memory?

I'm not fit to review the correctness of the books approach just to say that it doesn't work well for me, and many others it seems. This was a poor introduction to flash cs3 that was so bad I didn't even expense the thing. Not bad enough for 1 star , I'd like to give it 1.5

My first experiences with the Adobe Classroom in a book series were several years ago with the Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 10 CIB books. They were well done, logically presented, and gave you a pretty good understanding of the basics regarding the two programs.

This year I have been unfortunate enough to buy both the Flash CS3 and Dreamweaver CS3 CIBs and they are horrible. Both purchases were a waste of money.

You will learn little from the Flash CS3 book. It is full of errors, not only in the text but in the example files on disk. The logic flow of the overall presentation is essentially non-existent. The lessons are not related to one another, so that, for instance, Lesson Six does not integrate or include concepts presented in prior lessons. And, most of the lessons incorporate material from future lessons that haven't been touched on yet, which only leads to confusion.

I am not a newbie in either web design or digital animation, with 12 and 26 years experience in those fields respectively. And this book added nothing to my learning experience for Flash. I had this book, the printed manual, a Flash 'bible', and another tutorial book, and the Flash CS3 CIB all open at once while I jumped from index to chapter to obscure references here and there, along with watching numerous tutorial videos. The Flash CS3 CIB was useless.

The bottom line is, the Flash CS3 CIB would have been better off left as a tree.

The Adobe Flash CS3 Classroom in a book is an easy to understand and fast way to get up to speed with the latest version of Flash. How do I know? I had NEVER used any previous version of Flash and solely using this book, in two weeks I taught myself enough to pass the Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) certification exam!

I have been a graphic designer for over 14 years. I eat, breath and sleep Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark XPress, and have worked with InDesign, DreamWeaver, FireWorks, Acrobat and similar tools of the trade. I've also worked with Flash to an extent, and that's the only real reason I believe I got anything out of this book.

The problem isn't that the lessons don't illustrate real-world applications, but that the author rarely explains WHY he's instructing you to do something. Also, in many of the more advanced lessons too much has already been done for the student, especially with the construction of nested symbols for complex animations.

I had no difficulty completing the lessons successfully, but when I had finished the book and began to design an intro for a photography website, I realized that I didn't have a grasp on the principles of Flash, which should have been exactly what this book covered.

If you've had some experience with the program, I think you'll probably glean something new from it. If you've never worked in Flash before, you should probably seek a different book for your initiation.

I thought there was something wrong with me until I read through the other comments. I agree with those who say the instruction is imitative and not sufficiently explanatory. It is like following breadcrumbs through a forest-
what do you do when the breadcrumbs are gone? Show me how to use a compass and a gps and I will find my own way through the forest. I felt the same way about the Illustrator and Photoshop books, though to a lesser extent. I am a middle aged adult returning to school, and something has changed in instructional philosophy.
I like the program's capabilities and will now have to start over with a book that focuses on explaining how the program works.

This was such a terrible waste of money. It is too confusing and it does not help as much as it was supposed to. I have used a few of the Classroom In A Book series before,and I was relying on these past experiences, but this book is not as good as the other ones were. It looks like it has been written by some lazy writer who doesn't feel like explaining much. I should have listened to you guys who harshly criticized it. I agree with every one of you now. If I could, I would give NO stars at all to rate this thing.

After reading Adobe Illustrator CS3 Classroom in a Book and really finding it to be quite good, I expected this book to be good, as well. Unfortunately, as many other reviews here already share, it has many steps missing in exercises throughout the book. Adobe needs to go back to the drawing board on this one.

My graphic art teacher made us get this book for our Flash class. The first 4 chapters were pretty good. BUT, the 6 thru 11 chapters are horrible. The instructions give errors on everything, none of the students could do any of the work correctly. The teacher is scratching his head. This is a college grade course and it cannot be completed. I wish we had gotten the Flash Revealed. If your instructor wants you to use this book, do everything to talk him or her out of it!!!

This product has been very helpful to me in getting throught this course. Thank you.

I have literally spent days on some of the lessons in this book. The writing is awkward, editing inconsistent and I found myself repeating the lessons over and over with the same bad results. Someone called that insanity. Other books in the series have been much better.

Since it was assigned as the textbook in a class, and this is the first quarter that my school is using the CS3 platform, I really feel like the guinea pig. I fear I will complete the class with no more information than when I started because of this book.

As a video editor, I didn't know much about Flash CS3. When I had to build a Flash video web banner for work, Adobe's Flash CS3 classroom in a book helped in a BIG way. It gave me all the lessons and info I needed to complete the project; and prepare for upcoming projects. Afterwards, I bought Dreamweaver CS3 and Illustrator from the same training series, Thanks Adobe!

I bought this Classroom in a Book based on previous great experience with this series. I should have read the reviews first. This book appears to be hastily thrown together with incomplete steps that create confusion as to why something is not working. I am not new to flash and was only able to figure some things out based on a basic existing knowledge. If you value your time, leave this one alone.

I have finished the first eight lessons out of ten. The project I created in each lesson is exactly like the one they show you before you start, which means that I did them right.

The problem then? I didn't learn anything!

This is the most useless Classroom in a Book program I've used. There is no explanation for why you are supposed to do something. And, they have done so much of the work before you start the lesson that you couldn't possibly create something on your own.

I bought this book hoping I would learn how to create some simple basic flash animations but I can't. So, now I have to look for another book. I wouldn't recommend this book.

This book may be an adequate (barely) text in a classroom environment, but in either a self-learning, or on-line environment it is next to useless. The exercises are pure "cook book" instructions (do this/do that), with little or no explanation of the underlying rationale. Even after doing all of the exercises in the book, I feel I have no real grasp of how Flash works.

I'd gotten as far through the book as I could where things had worked, and worked fairly; lessons 1-4. Then with lesson 5, different story.
It would seem with what most of what the book instructs the user to do, enough attention to detail was not paid to the #5 working sample: The book takes the user through the steps like he's supposed to be in the driver's seat, hence really learning by doing. But, the animation may not have been 'stripped' of it's finishing steps that it instructs the user to do--they're already done. This was inconsistent with the previous lessons, which had all left enough steps to do from "scratch", as the book guides you through. At one point, I noticed it got a little careless about some of the instruction in that same problematic lesson, and I found that doing one of the steps was literally not possible--and no other details for it were given. It drove me elsewhere to get answers. Extremely frustrating!!

This book is absolutely horrible. Anyone can point, click and import graphics, etc., but you don't learn any skills you can walk away with except that Flash is based on a timeline and layers. You spend hours wondering if you're doing it right. The book lacks details. It was an absolutely horrible choice for our class. The instructor is way behind in posting the videos to complete the lessons too so that makes our class even more frustrating. The lessons are pretty easy if you are able to watch the instructor's video first but we don't have that luxury because apparently the instructor is also struggling with this lame book. The book also leaves out important details and shortcuts. I absolutely hate it and am very disappointed that this book is published under Adobe's name. I'm disappointed that Macromedia sold Dreamweaver and Flash to Adobe because Adobe has absolutely dropped the ball on support for these products for new users.

This book violates one of the most basic rules of effective instruction: don't say what to do without saying why. If you are new to Flash, you will be in for a frustrating time, (and you will probably end up hating
Flash or looking for another book, as I am doing.) If you follow each instruction VERY CAREFULLY you MAY complete the excercise with success...but you won't remember any of it in a useful way. As a former educator myself, I would never recommend this volume to any but my worst enemies.

I started from scratch to learn Flash with this book. At first I was worried whether I could learn something in Flash. Yes, absolutely I did. Explains every step in detail, there is no possibility to miss something. it's been just 1 week and I've almost finished this book.

only thing that you should be aware of is that you'll need to buy another book to specialize in Flash cs3, like an actionscript book.

I have several of the "Classroom in a Book" series, and have always been happy with them. However, this one has been quite a disappointment to me. Especially, since I only bought it because it was required for a class that I'm taking.

Now, after having his students purchase this "pricey" book, our instructor says that he's sorry and wishes he had picked another one. I am sorry he didn't spend more time on his choice before he required us to buy it!

This is the first time that I have ever "reviewed" a book on Amazon, even though I visit this site all the time. I just wanted to give out a little word of warning to folks who are thinking of purchasing it, since I have been so disappointed.

Good luck with your Flash projects, though!

As a graphic designer who had never really used Flash before I found this to be a really mixed bag. The projects start at different stages of completeness and you frequently wonder why you are doing certain steps. For instance the very first sample teaches you a simple animation but it is difficult to recreate the project from scratch based on what you just learned. ActionScript is presented in a very unfriendly manner with some cursory overviews and a 'copy this' style of instruction. Not the best launching pad for the true newbie.

I bought this book having never used Flash before, and find it invaluable. The Classroom in a Book series seems the easiest way to start learning complex Adobe software, since these books teach by having the user create a variety of projects. It's well organized, quick (all the necessary files are provided for each project), and each lesson memorable, since the user is actually doing the work, rather than watching a tutorial.

but the shipping sucked!!!

The delivery time was great.

However, you guys sent it to the billing address... not the delivery address. So I was late on an assignment for class.

Sorry but next time I'm not paying for fast delivery cause you send it to the wrong place.

I had great hopes for this book. To teach me Flash CS3 Professional. Well, at least I hoped to understand a fair amount of Flash CS3 after finishing this book. While the lessons touch on many aspects of Flash CS3, they barely scratch the surface of this very powerful program. The high-level lessons fail to convey why something is done, only telling you to follow their steps. The real world does not have simple steps to follow. For me to actually use Flash CS3, I need to know what to do and why to do it in given situations. This book fails in teaching the all important "why", hence is of limited value. If you want to glimpse some cool features of Flash CS3, then follow these lessons. If you want to know what to do and when/why to do it, check out much better Flash CS3 books such as Essential ActionScript 3.0 by Colin Moock.

What can I say, I like my books to be short and sweet instead of 1300 pages of blabbing. They must have updated the book since most of these other reviews because I had very few problems. When I did, it was usually because I skipped a line accidently.

My complaints:
- this amount of material should be included with the program like Adobe used to do with tutorials
- the price is steep for what you get content-wise (It could have easily been printed in black and white, had a small blurb on each process, and been priced around $20)
- the inclusion of small blurbs would cut down on the accidental skipping of steps

...but it is a great intro for people like me who are moving to Flash from Director MX. Besides, I love tutorials, as they get my creative juices flowing.

I spent hours struggling with this book because it was an assigned text book at my school.

I am pretty sure that they are missing critical steps in this book.There is no way I can repeat their lessons this many times and still not get the expected result.

This book will probably work if you need a bit of a brush up, but if you are a complete newbie like me - and can't deal with errors and problems wait for the revised version.

As far as I'm concerned the book is very poorly edited and probably hasn't been beta tested on novice users.

I've used the Classroom in a Book series for Photoshop & Illustrator and they were great so I was expecting to be a fan of this one as well.

If you are looking for a way to master your skills in flash, first of all you need to conquer the basis.

There is definetely no better way of starting with this amazing software than reading a book that guides you so easilly. You won't find any excuses any more. The courses I teach in Mexico are based on the information I acquired by reading this book and everyone has been extremely happy with everything they have learned.

You won't find a better teacher if you are starting with Flash CS3, and you won't find a better way to structure your knowledge and upgrade yourself if you already know your ways in the software.

Man, these examples take forever and the examples just don't give clarity in WHY you're doing what you're doing. After finishing a lesson I feel like I can't retain much of the information. I need a book that gives me more bang for the buck!!!

I went from being reasonably good at using complex actions in actionScript 2.0 then going to CS3 and not knowing how to make a simple button work.
I started this book at chapter 6 and found it was a really quick and easy way to re-learn all the basics again with the new language.(all chapters before 6 looked to be for real beginers)

the projects ussually take about 20-30 minutes and are pretty borring, however they are very effective at the same time,they also explain all the steps clearly.

well I am half way through the book, I havent actually tried the lessons, but I feel like I can use the program easily. I am fairly knowledgable with photoshop and dreamweaver. I had used a "Missing Manual" book for dreamweaver, which was an awkward,backward and jackleg way to learn dreamweaver, so this tutorial is making a lot of sense.

I really have no idea what people are talking about when they say that it took them a whole day to complete lesson or that there are tons of mistakes and missing steps in the book. I completed the book in three days(working a couple hours a day). Some lessons even took less time than what they allotted and I never went over the time they said it would take There are some mistakes, which adobe should fix asap(for example on page 171 step one of Using shape tweens to transform an object states to press F7 to insert a keyframe, when you should press F6. and on page 253 there needs to be a comma before the word data in the action script, but you can see that in the following page's screen shot. these were the only mistakes i found), but I found no missing steps(maybe i got a fixed version?). I learned a lot from this book, but it's not going to teach you the whole program. You aren't going to be an expert after reading this book, but it is a good intro to flash. If you purchase this book with the right expectations then I think you will be satisfied. I would have given it a 5 had there not been the two mistakes i found, those should have been caught before they published the book.

I can't believe I spent so much money (and time) on this book. I'm just about to complete it and I feel like I've learned ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! There are so many errors in this book and half the lessons are a game of "Simon Says." I can't believe Adobe Creative Team released such garbage. I'm really disgusted with all the errors and the sloppy writing. Galvan attempts to explain ActionScript in Lesson 7... my friends who are Flash experts just laughed their *sses off when they read parts of it. They agreed I'd never learn with such horrible instruction. What really makes me upset is I will now have to go back and find a better book and invest the time and energy to learn a program that the "experts" at Adobe can't even teach. I would love to contact Galvan and Adobe personally to let them know that most of the people on here are very upset. The ones that support this book are sponsors.

I feel like I've been spinning my wheels and going nowhere. After spending all day trying to work through the first part I gave up and figured I needed a fresh start. Today the lessons still didnt work and I even had a friend try to help me. Didn't anyone try these before they printed it? I feel like a guinea pig.

I know a thing or two about tutorials/manuals for I often test them as a beta-tester. The following comments are for all five of the CIBs. Yes, I have worked though each one.
As a bare start its ok but its just too much of a skimpy overview for the high price its requesting. This book should have been a PDF, unlocked, with the software. If you want a good intro at a reasonable price, don't buy this book. As for its content, I have found errors that should have been found long before it got to print. If you really want it, than wait a few more months for an updated edition. As for the pdf version, stay away from that too. Its DRM settings are overly restrictive, i.e., only 30 text selections over 30 days. There are much better books coming soon at the price with respect to its in-depth coverage. So buy them. :-)

I was told a couple of months ago at work that we were expanding our custom graphic work for clients to include Flash and that I was the one that was going to have to learn it. I started trying to learn Flash from a couple of the other books that were out there and while they appeared to have a ton of information, it just did not lay the knowledge out in a way that was easy for me to grasp and make my own. At best I made it through a couple of chapters before putting the book down and giving up.

A few years ago I easily learned both PhotoShop and Illustrator from the classroom in a book series. So, I thought I would give this one a try. I loved it. I did not run into any errors like the other reviewers are claiming and since I did not know Flash to begin with I can assure you that I was not filling in any blanks with previous knowledge.

I found this book to be very well written and easy to follow and would highly recommend it to anyone starting out to learn Flash. The projects are great. Since finishing the book a week ago I have been given two Flash projects to do at work. Both line up exactly with projects that are given in the book. Someone clearly spent time thinking about the real world applications of the content.

As an instructor I found this book highly unreliable. I can't believe that any of the the folks who gave this a 5-star rating actually read it. It is unfair if that is the case, as this book is not inexpensive. I don't have the money or time to waste on a book that just brings me frustration.

The first thing you will notice about this book is that it is project-based. Each chapter contains a lesson that covers certain Flash techniques, concepts or features and, along the way, introduces you to what is new in Flash CS3. But, instead of the information being presented in a vacuum, the Adobe Creative Team presents each technique with a real-world project. In my opinion, this is the easiest and best way to learn and master a complex software program such as Adobe Flash Professional CS3. The authors have minimized the complexity of Flash with the use of some very interesting, and customizable, projects and each of the eleven lessons has step-by-step instructions for creating a project or a part of a larger project.

The book begins with basic Flash techniques and acquaints you with the new improvements to the Flash workspace. This first project is a simple animation which deals with the Flash Library, Stage, Timeline, tools, panels, Property Inspector and more. The next lesson's project is a logo animation which can be used for a website or as a preloader. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce you to Flash's drawing modes and tools. You will also learn about importing images, selecting and grouping elements, masks and tweening.

In the next lesson, you learn about Flash symbols which are important to building Flash projects. The project for this lesson is a DVD control interface and you will learn about the integration between Illustrator and Flash, how to convert bitmap images into Flash objects, and creating and using symbols. The fourth lesson's project is an animated birthday card and the tasks you perform will teach you how to work with text in Flash. You will create and format text, convert text to a Flash symbol and apply a mask and filters to the text.

Character animation is the project for the next lesson and one of my favorite things to do in Flash. You will learn how to use motion and shape tweening, masking, motion guides and looping to move and position the character's arms, eyes and more. Back to a more serious project for the next lesson, you will work on a photography portfolio and learn to name instances, edit and nest symbols and create rollover states for buttons.

Up to this point in the book, you have only touched on ActionScript. In lesson seven, you will take a closer look at ActionScript basics as you work on the script for a website project. You will first learn how to work with the Actions panel and Script Assist in Flash. Then, you will use ActionScript to listen for events, assign actions to buttons and load data in response to an event. You will work with Flash components in the next lesson's project which is an interface display. You will work with three components which control the major parts of the interface. You will learn to setup and modify Flash components with ActionScript.

Working with video and sound in Flash is becoming more popular with the improvements to file compression and decrease in download time for Flash. The project for this lesson is a kiosk and you will learn to edit and import both sound and video, add more ActionScript to buttons and work with Alpha channels.

Creating a preloader animation is only part of the job. In this lesson, you will work on the ActionScript for a preloader, learn to monitor the loading of the main SWF file and cache bitmap images. As in most books about Flash, the last lesson covers testing and publishing a Flash project. You will also learn how to work with metadata and write ActionScript to detect the Flash Player used by the viewer of your Flash movie.

[...].

Few words are needed to describe the quality of "Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Classroom in a Book". If you use Flash CS3, you will want to own this book. Well written, great content, excellent resource to have at your fingertips.

The first thing you will notice about this book is that it is project-based. Each chapter contains a lesson that covers certain Flash techniques, concepts or features and, along the way, introduces you to what is new in Flash CS3. But, instead of the information being presented in a vacuum, the Adobe Creative Team presents each technique with a real-world project. In my opinion, this is the easiest and best way to learn and master a complex software program such as Adobe Flash Professional CS3. The authors have minimized the complexity of Flash with the use of some very interesting, and customizable, projects and each of the eleven lessons has step-by-step instructions for creating a project or a part of a larger project.



The book begins with basic Flash techniques and acquaints you with the new improvements to the Flash workspace. This first project is a simple animation which deals with the Flash Library, Stage, Timeline, tools, panels, Property Inspector and more. The next lesson's project is a logo animation which can be used for a website or as a preloader. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce you to Flash's drawing modes and tools. You will also learn about importing images, selecting and grouping elements, masks and tweening.



In the next lesson, you learn about Flash symbols which are important to building Flash projects. The project for this lesson is a DVD control interface and you will learn about the integration between Illustrator and Flash, how to convert bitmap images into Flash objects, and creating and using symbols. The fourth lesson's project is an animated birthday card and the tasks you perform will teach you how to work with text in Flash. You will create and format text, convert text to a Flash symbol and apply a mask and filters to the text.



Character animation is the project for the next lesson and one of my favorite things to do in Flash. You will learn how to use motion and shape tweening, masking, motion guides and looping to move and position the character's arms, eyes and more. Back to a more serious project for the next lesson, you will work on a photography portfolio and learn to name instances, edit and nest symbols and create rollover states for buttons.



Up to this point in the book, you have only touched on ActionScript. In lesson seven, you will take a closer look at ActionScript basics as you work on the script for a website project. You will first learn how to work with the Actions panel and Script Assist in Flash. Then, you will use ActionScript to listen for events, assign actions to buttons and load data in response to an event. You will work with Flash components in the next lesson's project which is an interface display. You will work with three components which control the major parts of the interface. You will learn to setup and modify Flash components with ActionScript.



Working with video and sound in Flash is becoming more popular with the improvements to file compression and decrease in download time for Flash. The project for this lesson is a kiosk and you will learn to edit and import both sound and video, add more ActionScript to buttons and work with Alpha channels.



Creating a preloader animation is only part of the job. In this lesson, you will work on the ActionScript for a preloader, learn to monitor the loading of the main SWF file and cache bitmap images. As in most books about Flash, the last lesson covers testing and publishing a Flash project. You will also learn how to work with metadata and write ActionScript to detect the Flash Player used by the viewer of your Flash movie.



The CD includes files for the lessons and training videos from Lynda.com and Total Training.

The lessons in this book are poorly planned and many times in each lesson I was left wondering what to do next, or worse yet, why I was doing something. The lessons take a lot more time than advertised, and many don't get you to the end result. I agree with many of the reviews here - except the one that looks like it was written by the publisher. I can't recommend any other books, but I sure can tell you that this book isn't any way to learn Flash. I bought three of these class room books and the only one worth anything is the photo shop book.

I have used many tutorial books over the years, and I've dealt with my fair share of books that were clearly rushed to press without adequate proofreading or field testing. This is not one of them. The exercises are well-designed and I did not find any errors. I have no idea what the negative reviewers are talking about -- they're either illiterate or have some vested interest in dissuading people from buying this book. Probably the latter.

You will not be disappointed with this book!

I was able to learn all the important basics in Flash CS3. I was surprised at how fun it was to go step by step from beginning to end in this book. I found no problems doing all the exercises in this book.. I recommend it 100% for those who know nothing of Flash.

[...]

Review by James Pyles
May 15, 2007

I've been doing an awful lot of writing about Flash lately. Not that I'm an expert, which is one of the reasons I'm reviewing this book. I find myself thrown into situations that require more of me than I currently possess; at least in terms of certain experiences. Like most people, I have an idea what Flash is and what it does, but am (or was) not so sure how Flash works. To answer my questions and to learn more, I decided to go to school.

Well...not school actually. Instead, I tried out a "Classroom in a Book". This is the Adobe Press (Peachpit, actually) series of educational books designed for use either in an instructor led, classroom environment or by the individual learning on his or her own. I fit the latter description. The initial parts of the book didn't teach me too much, but that's only because in my endeavours to document flash-related products for a client, I managed to learn at least the basics. However, to become more effective, I needed to learn much more.

The way this series is designed, you won't be able to get the full value from it unless you use the companion CD and you won't be able to get full value from the CD unless you have Flash and Quicktime installed on your computer. The CD contains a number of PDF files, some of which are advertisements or discount coupons for various products. There are however, fla and swf files comprising the lessons and 16 mov files containing tutorial movies (value added). I should mention though that since this version of Flash can import Photoshop and and Illustrator files and ActionScript development, you won't get the "full meal deal" unless you have your hands on these technologies as well.

This hardly means the old fashioned text-based book in and of itself is worthless. For those of us who remember when reading a book was "just" reading a book, without consulting other resources, it's important to know if what is contained between the covers is going to teach anything. The answer to that is "yes" and "no". It's "yes" in the sense that the lessons are very matter-of-fact, complete (missing no steps) and well illustrated. It's "no" in the sense that you need to at least have Flash installed on your computer and have access to the lesson files in order to follow along with the steps in each lesson. As Captain Kirk said to Lieutenant Saavak in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, "We learn by doing".

That's how this book teaches; by doing. I won't claim that it'll turn you into a Flash CS3 Professional guru in 24 seconds, 24 minutes, or 24 hours. In fact, sometimes, the lessons go rather slowly. I'm not talking about movies or flash lessons but the actual "doing" of the lesson. If you are starting out knowing little or nothing about making Flash animations, then it'll take time to become familiar with the interface, all of the tools, and how things work. Sure, you might be an expert in whatever productivity tools you currently use, but think back to when you weren't and you were just learning. Learning and becoming proficient takes time. That's something we tend to miss in our "instant gratification, microwave oven, I've-got-to-have-it-now" culture.

What I think you will get out of this experience is a sense of how "cool" Flash is and how much fun it is to make things in Flash and then see them work. The one temptation you'll need to resist is to break from the lesson plan or worse, start to become frustrated with it. The lessons very much guide you through the learning process but for awhile, it'll seem like you are doing nothing but following along with the steps by rote. I remember trying to learn the trumpet and I had the same experience. It didn't seem like I was learning to play so much as I was just following along. I quit after just a few lessons and never returned to learn any musical instrument. Of course, I was only ten at the time and I lacked the discipline and vision to see where the lessons could ultimately lead.

Despite what I said earlier about lessons going slowly, all you really have to do is diligently work your way through 352 pages of lessons. If you hang in there (and like I said, it's really a fun and cool technology to work with), you'll learn at least the basics of working in Flash and you'll have added another tool to your web development arsenal.

There's nothing more frustrating than investing 2 hours to do one lesson in this book only to realize there are missing steps. So you think you must have done something wrong and try again. But no, it's just a terrible book. Several chapters have missing steps which screws up your entire project. Save your money or buy a different Flash CS3 book. ANY OTHER BOOK. What a waste. If there were a zero star rating, I'd rate it at zero.

I am a new user of Adobe CS3. I bought this book to help with using Flash. While doing the Lessons, the book leaves out important steps. A 90 minute lesson turns into a full day as you go through the help, search online, trying to figure out the lesson. Did the Photoshop CS3, working on the Dreamweaver CS3 class room in a book. Both are better written, and highly recommend. Also ignore the 1 star rating. It should have been 2 or 3 stars.

I am a new user of Adobe CS3. I bought this book to help with using Flash. While doing the Lessons, the book leaves out important steps. A 90 minute lesson turns into a full day as you go through the help, search online, trying to figure out the lesson.