ISBN: 1903450063 Authors: Phil Piper Dan Humphrey Eng Wei Chua Eddie Carroll Jorge Diogo Richee Jesky Andrew Montalenti Steve Leone Randy Kato Brandon Ellis Paul Doyle Steve Webster Branden Hall Patricia Lee Nik Khilnani Justin Everett-Church Carlos Ponce Philippe Archontakis Nicolas Roy Shawn Ryder Bryan Mahoney Roger Prideaux David Beard Ben Wong Price: US $59.99 Pages: 1000 CD Rom: Yes Published: April 2001		Flash 5 Dynamic Content Studio Available at all good bookstores, or buy this title now at one of these online storesAmazon.comCompman (uk) Flash movies - the ones that play and then, well...stop - are all well and good. They are great as platforms for cartoonists and motion type artists to showcase their stuff. But it's the non-interactive and uninterruptable aspect of these Flash events that has lead to some serious underestimations of the power of Flash. All you need to do to begin creating the cutting-edge Flash web-sites of the future is learn how to get the most out of actionscripting, how to hook up your Flash movie with client/server coding and begin working with a back-end database. And it really is that easy! Suddenly the world of true Flash functionality is at your fingertips. Who is this book for? Flash 5 Dynamic Content addresses the growing market of web artists under pressure to learn the finer points of interactive design with Flash 5. This book demonstrates the best tools for integrating dynamic content using a Flash front-end. Readers will see how to link Flash movies, via a middleware bridge, through to a back-end datastores (images and/or text). This book assumes that the reader already knows the fundamentals of creating Flash movies, but doesn't assume any programming knowledge at all. The book covers ActionScripting, (of course!), ASP, PHP, JSP, Perl, CGI, Cold Fusion, Macromedia Generator, ASP Turbine, Swift Generator, and Macromedia Ultradev. What does this book cover? Flash 5 Dynamic Studio is written by a collective of Flash 5 experts who will tell you everything you need to know to upgrade your Flash 5 knowledge to Flash 5 expertise. Assuming a basic knowledge of Flash, the book gives you a thorough grounding in ActionScripting techniques, teaches you the basics of a myriad of scripting languages and their Flash interaction capabilities, discusses and implements client-side/server-side interaction, the middleware that can make your life considerably easier (Ultradev, Generator, Swift Generator, ASP Turbine), and demonstrates database interaction and usability, (Access, SQL, and MYSQL). To conclude this admittedly tough but not prohibitive learning curve, the book walks you through a selection of fairly generic real world case studies, using Flash with middleware and database connectivity, demonstrating how these elements come together to give you truly dynamic, interactive Flash sites. This book is about visual richness and utility. Web business is getting beautiful, and Flash is getting useful. The book structure, in a little more detail, looks something like this: Summary of Contents Part I - The Dynamic Web This section sets the stage for the rest of the book, talking about the web, Flash and Dynamic Flash. Part II - The Dynamic interface This is about what happens in the user's browser - a solid ActionScripting foundation is laid across five chapters, which progress from the basic through iterations of sophistication, to help you learn to really push the boundaries of Flash 5 ActionScripting. We also cover Object Orientated programming concepts within the context of Flash and ActionScripting, and JavaScript in the section. This area of the book is about interactive Flash 5 movies that respond to the user in all sorts of ways, without processing anything anywhere other than on the browser. Part III - Dynamic Integration There are a whole host of ways you can talk to Flash from the server - this section looks at a good cross section of the possibilities, all the way from the humble text file to ASP, JSP, PHP, Perl, CGI scripts and Cold Fusion, and the functionality that these technologies give you. Part IV - Dynamic generation So once you know what's going on with scripting, we take a look at the tools that make dynamically changing and/or creating your Flash front end quick and easy - ASP turbine, MM generator, swift generator, MM Ultradev. Part V - Dynamic data Data and databases are, of course, what will ultimately drive a sophisticated flash site, and so this section will teach you about data, data sources and databases - Access, SQL, MySQL, and, of course, XML. Part VI - Real World Dynamic Content Here everything you have learnt so far is put into practice, and we walk through some real world applications built by the experts and designers that have contributed to the book. Appendices Finally, some pretty solid appendices should help you take what you have learnt in the book a little further.