Flash Application Design Solutions:
The Flash Usability Handbook

By Craig Bryant, Ka Wai Cheung

Flash Application Design Solutions shows you how to harness the power of ActionScript 2.0 and make the most of the improved design tools of Flash 8 to create usable, intuitive Flash interfaces.

In this book, you'll find a number of concrete Flash usability solutions that use elements such as navigation menus, data filtering, forms, content loaders, Flash liquid layouts, help tips, and many other features. You'll learn how each of these solutions actually improves on what is possible with HTML and JavaScript. In each case, you'll see how users interact with the website feature, and how it gives users the most intuitive, enjoyable experience possible while using your application. You'll get a step-by-step analysis of how to program and build each solution, and how to make it scalable, maintainable, and reusable.

The book concludes with a case study that showcases the solutions developed in the previous chapters, all working together in a single application. This example puts all the pieces together and highlights just how, with some thought and consideration, Flash can improve usability on the Web.

This book is essential reading for all Flash designers and developers, from beginners seeking valid solutions to veteran Flashers looking for a fresh perspective on application design, interaction, and reusability.

You'll learn:

• Important Web usability theory
• How to build usable Flash applications
• Effective object-oriented programming using ActionScript
• How to use new Flash 8 features
• Object-oriented ActionScript programming

Summary of Contents:

• PART ONE: INTRODUCING FLASH USABILITY
  • Chapter 1: Flash: Then, Now, Later
  • Chapter 2: Setting Up Your Flash Environment
• PART TWO: THE USABILITY SOLUTIONS
  • Chapter 3: A Basic Selection System
  • Chapter 4: Navigation Menus
  • Chapter 5: Content Loading
  • Chapter 6: Inventory Views and Selection Devices
  • Chapter 7: Data Filtering
  • Chapter 8: Forms
  • Chapter 9: State Management and Storage
  • Chapter 10: Help Tips
  • Chapter 11: Browser History
  • Chapter 12: Liquid Layouts
  • Chapter 13: Embedding Flash
• PART THREE: PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER
  • Chapter 14: Planning for Usability
  • Chapter 15: The Usable Bookstore

This book is part of friends of ED's 'Solutions' series

The Solutions series continues the pragmatic approach of the Essential Guide, but offers more in-depth answers to common technology problems. Once you're up and running with a technology, a Solutions book is the one you want at hand when you run into a stumbling block. Each chapter focuses on an aspect of the technology and gives the answer to all of the common problems related with it. With every answer, you are provided with a full explanation of the issue, giving you the whys, the wheres, and the workarounds, and an example application or code snippet that you can use to solve the problem in your own application.