Flashcom Bible: The Book That Never Was

Dude, Tuna on Triscuit’s rock!

Ok, so I actually started college a semester late compared to her majesty simply so I could balance my time between my full-time job, contract, and <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0764538276/qid=1076557927//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-0888755-7226428?v=glance&s=books&n=507846″>this book</a>, The Flash Communication Server MX Bible. I wrote 4 chapters for it:
– Chapter 13 – Using Components
– Chapter 16 – Creating Flashcom Components
– Chapter 17 – Monitoring
– Chapter 25 – Director Games

However, I think the book can be called officially vapor-lit (or whatever the term is nowadays). I haven’t heard hide nor hair of it, nor really care at this point as the content quickly dates itself beyond usage more than 6 months from now.

At any rate, I remembered it today while being asked about book writing on Flashn00bz, and later all this hub-bub on <a href=”http://www.fullasagoog.com/”>Full As A Goog</a> about the new release of Director MX 2004. I was hooked since the Breeze party weeks ago. I remember an article I wrote about 3D games in Director utilizing Flashcom, and one problem I had during writing was accessing a property on a Remote Shared Object’s data property that didn’t exist. Flash gives a hoot… Director gets pissed, and throws an error while running… and then promptly stops running.

I can’t remember how I fixed it, but just briefly skimmed/read one of the Macromedia Resource articles about <a href=”http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/director/articles/flash_in_directormx2004.html”>changes to the Flash Asset Xtra in the new version of Director</a>. It said you could access a property that didn’t exist without Director getting all huffy. Gawd, that’s a nice feature. Talk about making 2 environments working nice together.

Anyway, anyone know if I can release these 4 chapters now? I can’t remember signing anything castrate’esque, haven’t heard from Wiley in about a year, and figured the community could use this stuff rather than the digital mold currently festering atop it deep on my D drive. What do you think? I know there are some writers out there.

9 Replies to “Flashcom Bible: The Book That Never Was”

  1. If you didn’t sign anything and haven’t been paid, it’s still your property to do with what you choose (the version that hasn’t been edited by anyone else, and without a Wiley template). So you could post the material anywhere if no contracts were signed. Personally, I might send them a “warning” email to let them know what you’re planning to do – and of course, it would probably risk inclusion of the chapters if the book ever does get to the printers. I recall tech editing some of this book well over a year ago now (I think), and also have not heard hide nor hair from Wiley about the rest of this particular book.

    It happens. I hope you get some use out of your content :) Oh, and just a note of caution – I’ve seen a lot of book contracts, but haven’t been in this particular situation. I honestly don’t see much of a risk if no contracts are involved.

  2. Be bold man, do it.. I dare ya! no..I double dare you!

    Wiley can kiss your SWG char’s ass! if they haven’t come up with a price tag of some kind your way, let them stew. Or.. approach NewRiders / MM Press and see if they would take in board (ie DevNet could do with some more useful information).

  3. No, and don’t think so. I personally didn’t use one, and I think what I signed for them was some NDA stuff not to talk about it or whatever. It’s all fuzzy, it was a year ago.

  4. Thanks for posting the chapters. Very helpful. Been waiting 2 months for the book. Order still open at Amazon.

    In particular, just proposed an educational game along the lines you described in chap 25. You reafirmed that Director/Flash/FlashComm is the way to go.

  5. Thank for posting the chapters. I don’t know if anyone knows this or not but I got the news stright from the horses mouth. (publisher Wiley, John & Sons Inc.) that this book has been canceled and no other book is scheduled to replace it. This is trully sad. I’ve been watching for this book to be released for 6 months and on Amazon it’s got a release date of May 1, 2004 but last week it was March 2004 and back in February it was Feb 23, 2004. I think this is just completely bogus. Why is information about FlashComm being supressed so much. The two books out about FlashComm are a joke and they are both from Macromedia Press. So it leaves me with the question….. Why is macromedia suppressing information about FlashComm?

  6. I apologize I couldn’t have written more and released that too. The time that I was given to write those chapters were a very stressful time in my life and I got burnt out pretty bad. 4 was all I could do.

    However, very soon, with the advent of Breeze, there should be more, but I think a quick primer to the objects that matter would be a great addition. Still, there are a lot of documentation on it now in the Flash Reference/Help Panel, and Macromedia’s site.

    What are you looking for; tutorials? Walk throughs?

    As for suppression, I think the opposite; they are using their own technology in Breeze, so maybe it’s just in flux?

  7. I’m late to this discussion…where are these chapters of the book…i very much would like to download and read them.

    Thanks

    Gary Ingle

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