Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 introduce a new extensibility architecture. This is not an upgrade to an existing feature, but a brand new concept that nobody using an earlier version of Flash has seen or used before. With the extensibility tools, which include behaviors, custom-made tools and commands, the JavaScript API (or JSFL), and the XML-to-UI API, you can literally extend Flash to do things it cannot do out of the box. Things such as adding new custom commands to the menu and customizing the tool bar, adding brand new, custom created tools. The commands could be as simple as drawing a commonly used shape on the stage, or as complex as creating an entire new Flash movie from scratch. Tools take into account mouse actions and property inspector parameters. This allows you for custom shapes much as are seen in Microsoft Office, for example, stars, callouts, arrows, etc. These new features will not only allow users to share code and effects more easily within the community or a production environment, but will also allow developers to package up and reuse more within Flash than was ever possible before, increasing productivity and decreasing production times. Flash MX 2004, but the possibilities of what one could do with these are staggering. Virtually anything you can do in the authoring environment can now be written into a command or behavior.

Build Your First Website with Flash MX n no previous experience required! Never built a website before or bored with the limitations of HTML? If so, then this book is for you! Weill show you how to create an interactive website with all the features you could want (animation, video, sound and more) and youill discover that building a website with Flash is both easy and fun! Practical, step-by-step instructions guide you directly through the process of achieving your goal. We wonit bore you with pages of theory that youill never use, or examples that arenit relevant to the main task. From creating your first animations to getting your finished site on the web, youill get concrete results and a real sense of achievement at every stage. Whatever your current knowledge, youill finish the book with a fully functional Flash website and all the skills to build your own site! Everything you need to Build Your First Website with Flash is included on the accompanying CD, from a fully functional trial version of Flash MX (for those of you who donit already have it) to the finished version of every exercise in the book, and all of the images, sounds, and video footage that we use. As a bonus weive also included trial versions of other web creation and image preparation tools for you to experiment with (Dreamweaver MX, Fireworks MX, Freehand 10). * Build a fully functional Flash website * Add animation, video and sound * Get your site on the web * Free technical support at Friendsofed.com * Share your ideas with your peers at Buildyourfirst.com * Free trial software on accompanying CD From the Publisher This book is for people who like to familiarise themselves with a piece of software by getting stuck in, building something, then playing with it. Go through the chapters, follow the examples and build a fully-functioning website. Then use the knowledge gained here to develop your own spell-binding Flash website. Contains a fully-functioning 30 day trial version of Macromedia Flash on CD.