Flash 8 Essentials

As a Flash Developer, you're no doubt excited by the great new features available in the next version of Flash X, to be released later in the year. It promises to include several impressive new design and scripting features.However, a lot of the features will be the same, so you will want a book that gets you right up to speed asap with the exciting new features of the new version.In this book, some of Flash's most prominent community figures do just that, starting you off with an overview of Flash X and what's new. They then address all of the new features. The book concludes with a gallery of examples to further demonstrate some of the exciting new features of Flash X. TOC:Overview of 8Ball, includes IDE overview. Include to friendsofed.com useful links list - Matt Voerman.- Blending Modes - Craig Swann/Glen Rhodes.- Filters - Craig Swann/Glen Rhodes.- Drawing Improvements - this includes strokes, fills, and gradients - Todd Yard.- Getting Creative with Filters, Masks and Animation - Guy Watson.- Video - Alpha channels and other improvements - Craig Swann/Glen Rhodes.- TextField Improvements. Include Saffron - background behind it, and examples of how much better the display is. Compare to previous Flash versions. Also, include Anti-Alias, quick resizing of textfields without distorting text in the field, and improvements to HTML support, including HTML tags for justified text - Matt Voerman.- Speed Improvements, including Caching MovieClips as Bitmaps - Guy Watson.- The new Image API - Guy Watson.- Asset Caching - Craig Swann/Glen Rhodes.- Goodbye FSCommand, Hello ExternalInterface - Craig Swann/Glen Rhodes.- Low-level Data and Sockets - Craig Swann/Glen Rhodes.- Appendix A: Gallery of 8Ball examples - Tink (Stephen Downs).