Dummies - Macromedia Flash 8 For Dummies

Welcome to Macromedia Flash 8 For Dummies, your friendly Webanimation companion. In this book, we explain in plain English how to make the most of Flash to create stunning Web site animations. Macromedia Flash 8 For Dummies aims to give you all the information you need to start using Flash right away — with no hassle.

About This Book
As though you hadn’t guessed, Macromedia Flash 8 For Dummies covers the powerful animation product Flash 8, from Macromedia. (The preceding version was Flash MX 2004.) Flash 8 is the latest version of the popular software used on some of the coolest Web sites on the Internet.

Flash comes in two versions: Flash 8 Basic and Flash 8 Professional (Pro). In addition to including all the features of Flash 8 Basic, the Pro version of Flash has powerful features for programmers and production teams, such as project file management, version control of Flash files, and the ability to connect Flash to live external data sources and Web services. In addition, Flash 8 Pro offers special graphics effects, custom animation controls, better handling of bitmap scaling, and improvements in the way video content is handled. In this book, we focus on the features of Flash 8 Basic rather than Flash 8 Pro because they’re much more useful to people who are new to Flash. However, we do sometimes describe the Flash 8 Pro features. We comprehensively explain the Flash features, including
+ Working with the Flash screen, toolbars, and menus
+ Creating graphics and text in Flash
+ Adding sound and video
+ Using layers to organize your animation
+ Creating symbols, which are objects that you save for repeated use
+ Animating graphics (the key to Flash)
+ Creating interactive Web sites
+ Publishing Flash movies to your Web site