Book Review: Page (1) of 1 - 04/27/04

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Macromedia Flash MX 2004 for Rich Internet Applications by Phillip Kerman 460 Pages $45.00 US/$67.99 CAN New Riders Publishing click on image to buy

While Macromedia's Flash web authoring tool has been around for over seven years, only in the last year have people really started to contemplate new and exciting ways to go beyond the browser and present alternatives to the way Flash movies can be presented. It all started with just using Flash projectors to create Screensavers and CD-ROM's but since Flash MX came out almost two years ago did anyone really look at new ways to incorporate Flash presentations that do not require having a web browser installed at all.  

Late in 2002, products like Flash Remoting and the Flash Communications Server (or FlashComm) made this more of a reality, albeit a pricey one. Indeed, there are very few web servers set up at the time of this writing that can incorporate FlashComm-ready apps. And you really can't set up a online radio or TV station by using it like you can with Real or Windows Media. Still, these two additions to Flash made creating offline web apps possible.

With the recent introduction of Flash MX 2004, the process has been drastically accelerated. Thanks to the introduction of new Data Components, users of Flash can now create connections to XML files and/or Web Services very easily without a tremendous knowledge of programming knowledge. All you have to do is know the way there.

And that's where this book comes in. Written by Oregonian Philip Kerman, this release shows various ways to create Web based applications with or without ever making the user ever open up a web browser. Phillip explains how he helped create an online app for Stampede Cattle to allow for online cattle auctions in real time. Then he goes step by step explaining what a Flash projector is and the various ways you can create them. He shows tricks on how to make your movies change in size depending on how the users rescales his or her browser or projector. He then explains how to create a simple video/audio/text chat app using FlashComm and various ways to incorporate data whether it is directly in your ActionScript code via arrays (which is fine for small amounts of data), and then using various types of databases from XML to Web Services. Displaying the data is also crucial and Philip explains how thanks to Flash addition of incorporating style sheets that this too has become a breeze. Which shouldn't be confused with Macromedia Breeze which is a whole 'nother way of incorporating Flash content that isn't really discussed in this book.

While Components certainly do help speed up the process of creating your Flash Apps, they are not a perfect solution. Yes, you will have to code! However, thanks to the author's diseminations on the topic, you will see how you can incorporate data into your combo boxes and data grids with a few lines of ActionScript code. You'll also see how you can skin these components and how much different and difficult this new way of skinning is compared to the last version of Flash. (Personally, I'm not a big fan of the new skinning methods since if you really want to go into a component and tweak more than just it's color but instead you want to affect it's entire shape and appearance, it requires opening up the original Flash .fla the component is in and ten resaving it and then finding the actual objects in its' library to make the changes. Needle in a haystack? Believe me, it's one huge haystack)!

Besides learning how to use components wisely you will also learn how to create your own simple components. This in turn will create a kind of clearinghouse for ActionScripts that you can use and reuse without having to recreate elements of an .fla over and over again.

No question that Rich Internet Applications are indeed one of major prospects in the future of the ever-changing internet. Unlike just embedding a .swf onto a webpage and praying the end user has the correct version of the Flash plugin installed, you no longer have to worry about this in most cases. By incorporating your project inside a Flash projector, you'll have an app that automatically embeds the proper Flash plugin directly inside of the app, thus eliminating the worry to make the end user download the product. In addition you no longer need to force the user to open up a web browser to see your content. By using tools like SWFDesktop or FlashCandy, you can create Screensavers or Desktop Wallpaper that can connect to online content directly as long as some kind of web connection is happening at the time the app starts. By using Macromedia's new Central app, you'll be able to present your app in a program that can properly display while having Macromedia promote it.

If you started using Flash back in the FutureSplash or Flash 2 era, you were way ahead of the curve and now if you start looking into creating these Rich Internet Applications, you'll once again be way ahead of the curve before the rest of the pack attempts to play catch-up. Mr. Kerman's book is one of the first titles I've seen that explores this angle and does an excellent job in presenting the various ways you can create it. Whether you have just Flash MX 2004 or Flash MX Professional 2004 or you still use just the previous version of Flash MX, you'll find this book a must on your way to Flashing your potential success.

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