Flex 4 Fun: Available in PrePrint

Chet's handy AcrtionScript algorithm for writing a programming book:

public function writeBook():FinishedManuscript
{
 var manuscript = new FinishedManuscript();
 writeDemos(manuscript);
 writeText(manuscript);
 while (true)
 {
    edit(manuscript);
    revise(manuscript);
 }
 // TODO: Next line never executes
 return manuscript;
}

Finally, after months of writing, editing, revising, coding, explaining, revising, deliberating, cogitating, revising, formatting, reformatting, revising, snapshotting, describing, captioning, revising, and dying a little inside, my book Flex 4 Fun is finished. Almost. It just needs a little more editing and revising.

The book is content complete: all of the chapters are done, all of the demo applications compile and run, all of the text is correct as far as I know, and there are no known typos.The book could still benefit from one more review cycle, but rather than wait for that plus the printing delay until it would actually be available on bookshelves (usually 2-3 months after a book is completely complete), I wanted to push out this early version close to last month's Flex 4 release.

Flex 4 Fun is different than other Flex, or Flex 4, books I've seen; it focuses on the graphics and animation side of the SDK. I figured that's what I like to play with on Flex, it's what I know best about the platform, and it deserved a book that went deeper into these topics than the other Flex books. Sure, an overview book is good to have. Yes, you should understand how to connect Flex to a back end. Alright, you probably want to understand how to architect large Flex applications. But when you get around to creating better user experiences for that Flex client, you'll want to know more about graphics, states, skinning, and animation. And hopefully this book and its 65+ examples can help teach you how that stuff works.

Here's the books Contents page:

1. Introduction 13

2. Graphics 18

3. Filters: Easy Image Processing 60

4. States 96

5. Transitions 105

6. Skinning Components 119

7. Animation 138

8. The Animation Class 152

9. Flex Effects: The Basics 184

10. Effect Choreography 209

11. Advanced Flex Effects 230

12. Go Have Fun 258

The book is available in PrePrint form on artima.com. Go check it out and have some fun!

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