Foundation Flash Catalyst

By Greg Goralski

This book offers an introduction to Flash Catalyst for designers with intermediate to advanced skills. It discusses where Catalyst sits within the production process and how it communicates with other programs. It covers all of the features of the Flash Catalyst workspace, teaching you how to create designs from scratch, how to build application designs and add functionality, and how to master the Catalyst/Flex workflow.

• Introduces Flash Catalyst
• Focuses on production process
• Covers the interrelation between Flash Catalyst and Photoshop/Illustrator/Flex/Flash

What you’ll learn

Starting from scratch, you’ll learn the basic concepts and interface functionality of Flash Catalyst, and get practical experience by working on carefully crafted real-life projects throughout the book. You’ll learn every stage of the process, from the first design sketches to the Flex Developer hand over, and how you can make design changes to assets while the developers work on the code. You’ll also learn how to make your designs functional by adding simple buttons and scroll bars, and how to make sure that developers can precisely interpret your vision.

• Converting Photoshop/Illustrator artwork to interactive designs
• Sketching designs with interactivity
• Sketching designs with transitions
• Working with the FXG format
• Designing with fluid layouts in Catalyst

Who this book is for

This book is for designers experienced with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks who want to include Flash Catalyst in their workflows. It’s also for the general audience looking to design rich Internet applications using Catalyst.

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

The Foundation series is perfect for beginners to a technology, because it doesn't assume any previous knowledge. Each book in the series takes you step by step through your chosen technology, starting with the absolute fundamentals and working through all aspects of the technology, ultimately providing you with a firm grasp of the basics that will enable you to create your own applications or web sites. You will learn by following complete examples at every stage of your journey, often by extended case studies that you will build upon throughout the book. The Foundation series will give you the broad and solid base you need in order to progress to a higher level of expertise.