This book provides the richest and most solid introduction to the exciting world of Flash applications, which are becoming increasingly popular as ways of presenting visually rich interfaces to useful data and services. The book supplies you with the knowledge, techniques, and skills that you need to help you plan, develop, and build Flash-based applications that you can deploy on the Web. In true Foundation series style, this book uses step by step exercises and a running case study to build the skills that you can then apply to any Flash application you create. The emphasis in this book is on the generic skills and approaches that are essential in this field, rather than on shallow walk-throughs of trivial projects. You'll come away from this book with a deeper understanding of the issues (architectural, technical, process-related, design-oriented) that are key to developing successful Flash applications for the Web. From the Publisher This is the only book on the market that focuses on generic, transferable skills that are taught using a case study that'll really drive the learning home. If you want to really understand this subject, then this is the book for you. To get the most out of this book, we recommend that you already have a grasp of the Flash MX interface, as well as some ActionScript experience. Topics include: A full-length case study, creating a dynamic Flash message board application. Designing usable, scalable, and interactive Flash-based applications. Deploying XML for client/server communication. Using PHP as an intermediary between XML and back-end data storage. The MySQL database.