2 comments about ActionScript: The Complete Reference.

1. After Flash 5 ActionScript, I didn't think that it would get much bigger. Flash MX ActionScript is huge, and this book makes it available. The author spends only the first two chapters with the basics of writing ActionScript in the context of Flash MX and makes a nice transition from Flash 5 to Flash MX.

   Then, from Chapter 3 to the end of the book's 21 chapters, the author decided to follow the order of actions in the Actions toolbox in the Actions Panel. That makes it very easy to find stuff because it's organized along the same logical patterns as the toolbox. Even so I found myself going to both the detailed TOC and appendix to look up terms, and I never had problems finding what I needed.

   Anyone can explain the easy stuff like the old gotoAndPlay() actions, and so I went to the new OOP materials and XML socket section. The OOP stuff was mixed with non-OOP throughout the book, and OOP-related methods like registerClass() were explained in detail and supported with a good example using something that made sense in the context of Flash MX. In fact, the whole book was filled with good examples. Some examples extended over several pages and others were little ones that gave you a quick insight. Sanders is an ace with examples. As for the XML socket material, not only did the explanation explain to me for the first time ever what the blazes a socket server was, it provided a URL where I could download a free socket server, which I did. Then I worked the example, and now I have my own mini-chat in XMLSocket. I'm happy.

   The last several chapters were in-depth explanations of the different ActionScript terms used with the new UI Components. Each component got its own chapter, and I found it invaluable for designing with the components. It does not cover re-skinning, but I was able to get the look I wanted by changing every element in the components and I am a big user of UI components. (You can change all the little parts of components like highlight, higlight3D, face, darkshadow, etc. without re-skinning.)

   There were a lot of little details I liked in the book. The examples were mixed, interesting, and clarifying. Undocumented terms, like onData with LoadVars(), were included, and I found what I needed. One suggestion for people getting this book: buy some of those little colored tab stickem things to bookmark all of the part of this book you'll need to reference again and again.




2. This is one of those books that I use all the time. Because this is the first book I've given 5 stars, I'd better explain.

   First, I like the way the book organized itself along the lines that the ActionScript editor or toolbox lists the different ActionScript terms. The parallel makes things easy to find. Second, I like the way the examples are used. For instance, the author explains the geometry behind the cosine of an angle explaining the Math.cos() method and then provides an example that draws a perfect circle. That's a lot better than I get in just about any other book. (Maybe that's more than some need, but I appreciated it.) Third, I like the level range. The beginning of the book is only 2 chapters, but it's a good 2 chapters that provide a quick explanation of ActionScript and scripting. However, further on in the book, it also covers more complex things like registerClass() with a detailed examples. The same is true for all of the new objects like LoadVars().

   Finally, I have found myself using the last several chapters covering UI components. Before I got this book, I really didn't use UI Components very much, and now I use them constantly. In fact, those chapters (Pt IV, Chs 14-21)are what I find myself using the most. If this book had nothing but Part IV, the book would have been more than worth it to me.

   I think the book is worth 6 stars -- 5 for the first 3 parts and an additional one for the last part covering UI Components.

No comments about Software Visualization (Series on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering).

No comments about Graphics Programming in Turbo Pascal 6.0.

5 comments about The Awesome Power of Direct3D/DirectX - The DirectX 7 Version.

1. Its a book thats aimed for a person who has a lot of time to waste in the understanding of code not making any sense, especially the code pertaining to terrain generation, which is very confusing and without any explanation. Secondly this book focuses basically on the retained mode and just copies the documentation of DirectX5 SDK help for immediate mode. One good thing about it is code and explanation handling of joystick and sound. Apart from it I don't find it any more useful. One can learn better reading the SDK help and code for other things.



2. I decided to buy this book after I finished reading the introduction and first chapter. But little I knew how messed up the code in this book is. I haven't really look into the DirectX documentation yet so I am not going to comment on that. But I do believe people saying that part of the book is "cut and paste" from somewhere else, they just don't make sence at all... I started notice the problem in Chapter 2 where there are quite a bit of typo and wrong information about the CD. Once I get into Chapter 3. This situation become worse, there are tones of code segment which I have no idea where to put. I could never find any makefileX in any directory (according to the book). What kind of publisher or author is this? At least they should take some time to check the consistency between the code and the CD... I DO NOT recommend this book !



3. This book really has some good stuff in it and for someone who doesn't know where to start in rendering a 3D environment, moving around it, adding collision detection, special FX - including lighting, sounds, animation sets, loading pre-built 3D objects into your world and adding textures & mipmaps it's great. It shows many other features of Windowed mode and immediate mode programs, and will greatly enhance your knowledge of creating advanced 3D virtual environments. The main problem this book has is a lot of the code in the book is snippets from the accompanying CD so the only way to understand which parts of the program the code is from is by loading the appropriate chapters from the CD and searching for it. I will agree with an earlier comment that the section on terrain creation is not very well explained and the code is a nightmare to understand. It's not all bad though because this book is definitely worth a read. Your knowledge will be increased from none to huge amounts within a few days of reading and fiddling with the code. All round this book is worth having in your pogramming library.



4. I bought this book four months ago. However, I have started read five weeks ago. Why?

   When I read pg. #3 four months ago, I was embarassed. On pg. #50, I saw too many aliens. Finally on pg. #60 I became an dead man. At that time, I was perfactly beginner on computer graphics and Kovach's book looks terrible and like alien. However, now I would like to say "Thank You" to Kovach for writing such a wonderful book.

   After reading an elementary stuff on graphical mathmatics, DirectDraw and so on, I can understand what the alien is and how it works.

   It is the point what I want to say that this book is good for intermediate reader who are familiar with WIn32 programming and have some basic skills on DirectDraw, but if you are completely beginner at computer science or Win32, this book make you mad.

   All thing have pros and cons. All codes on this book is not so good to read and understand.




5. Unless you like working with resource hungry technology of yesterday then give this book a miss. Anyone who knows even a touch of direct X knows that retained mode has been abandoned for a couple of years, not a surprising as it was very rarely used and certainly not used in game development. I find it hard to believe that this book is still being sold, let alone at this price. Save your cash.

No comments about Illustrated Computer Graphics Dictionary.

No comments about Designing Gui Applications for Windows.

No comments about ICT Activities in Geography: Single User (ICT Activities in Geography).

No comments about Earthquakes and Volcanoes (Earth's Changing Landscape).

No comments about Computer Graphics and Image Processing (Sibgrapi 2001), XIV Brazilian Symposium on.

No comments about Are You a Born Survivor? (Altered Image Publications).