Special Edition Using Macromedia Director 8 is a comprehensive guide to creating and publishing Director movies. This book provides in-depth explanation of the complex features of Director and Lingo, as well as power tips and techniques to maximize the features and tools. While the first section is great for learning Director 8 from square one, you'll also find complete coverage of Director 8, from advanced issues such as Lingo scripting and multi-user applications to the hot new features of the latest release. New feature coverage includes more efficient sprite editing with the context-sensitive Property Inspector and zoomable Stage, advanced image manipulation with new image Lingo, better audio handling with new sound Lingo, quicker production with Publishing, and multiuser applications with the Shockwave multiuser server. This book comes with tons of practical examples and complete, open source movies.

Special Edition Using Director 8 is the new book by Gary Rosenzweig, his fifth book on Macromedia Director. It starts with the basics of Director animation and gradually moves through more advanced Director techniques and Lingo. It is a great book to use to learn Director from the ground up, as well as a great book to use as a reference. In addition, this book goes further into advanced territory than any other book on the market. The book includs lots of code and sample movies, as well as six chapters of complete applications (including seven games!). The CD-ROM contains these samples and lots of extra goodies. This book is for both artists and programmers.

From the Author: I did several things to update this book from Special Edition Using Director 7. First, I added sections on the new features of Director 8: things like image Lingo, sound Lingo, Publishing, Property Inspector, Cast list view, zoomable Stage, scalable Shockwave, and Guides. In addition to new sections, I had to update much of the book to use the latest Director interface elements and Lingo code. I also tried to improve every other section of the book, clarifying procedures and adding more tips, techniques and examples. Also new is a whole chapter on the multiuser server and a much improved Lingo reference.

You can buy the book at your local bookstore, or you can order it online right here, although the page doesn't display the correct author right now! (we've contacted them about it). You can also check out other Director and Lingo books at the CleverMedia Bookstore.

Here is the table of contents. This will give you a good idea of what the book covers (pretty much everything!).