Title: Building Dynamic Web Sites With Macromedia Studio MX 2004
Authors: Tom Green, Jordan L. Chilcott, Chris S. Flick
Publisher: New Riders www.newriders.com
Publication Date: 2004
Pages: 542
ISBN: 0-7357-1376-6

Building Dynamic Web Sites With Macromedia Studio MX 2004 is an excellent resource for Web developers. This book explains how seven of Macromedia's products in Studio MX 2004 may be used together to build dynamic web sites. You will be led through the steps of building a site for a fictional organization from planning to uploading and maintenance and will obtain valuable skills and techniques to help you build profession and dynamic web sites.

Inside you'll find information on the following:

• Planning a web application using flow charts;
• Using all of the Studio tools;
• Designing a database;
• Using templates;
• Building a site based on CSS;
• Using Flash video;
• Using Flash Remoting for you applications;
• Incorporate Flash Communication.

Building Dynamic Web Sites With Macromedia Studio MX 2004 consists of: an Introduction, 20 chapters, and is divided into 5 parts.

Introduction: The book begins with a special Introduction which includes an overview of the book.

Chapters 1 through 5--The first section is an overview of what you are going to build, the tools you will use, and the skills necessary to build the site. The section discusses the architecture of web sites and introduces you to something called the "Pancake Principle" of building a dynamic site. Then the section discusses the planning issues and the paper trail that must be built, and also discusses how to plan the logic and the flow of a dynamic site. Finally, the chapter covers how you construct a prototype of a site.

Chapters 6 through 10--This second section of the book deals with building a dynamic facility tour, the art tools of Fireworks MX 2004 and Freehand MX 2004, and how Flash MX 2004 and Dreamweaver MX 2004 can be used to display dynamic data. It also shows you how to utilize the power of Cascading Style Sheets, how to build a database, configure ColdFusion for Dynamic Data, and use Flash Remoting to communicate with your database. The section ends with assembly and testing.

Chapter 11 through 14--The third section deals with the building of a booking facility. It shows you both how to plan the section and how to create the assets used in the section. Then it moves into more advanced features—using Director MX, not Flash MX 2004—for the task. The book looks at how the applications in the Studio integrate with Director and discuss how to move data through Director MX using the Flash Communication Server. The last chapter in the section explains how one would build the booking facility in Flash MX 2004.

Chapters 15 through 18--The fourth section of the book builds an online meeting facility. It shows you how a number of the tools in the Studio can be used to construct the assets. Then the book discusses how to design and build an online chat room with streaming audio and video capabilities.

For running Studio MX, you need:

PC:

• 600 MHz Intel Pentium processor or equivalent
• Windows 98, Windows 2000, or Windows XP
• 128 MB RAM
• 347 MB available disk space

Mac:

• 500 MHz Power PC G3 processor
• Mac OS X 10.2.6 and later, 10.3.4
• 128 MB computer RAM
• 280 MB available disk space