Lingo Sorcery: The Magic of Lists, Objects and Intelligent Agents, 2nd Edition

Peter Small shows how to work with objects (particularly lists) and offers a lot of help in conceptualizing what they are and what they can do. He goes into considerable detail about Lingo's messaging model--the means by which Lingo objects communicate with one another--and explains the powerful object-user interface, including Lingo's ability to alter user-interface elements on the fly.

After explaining Lingo OOP with a carefully arranged series of segments, Small shows how the concepts he's taught can be applied to specific Lingo objects in specific situations. He shows how to implement an advice-dispensing animated help character by working magic with a movie in a window (MIAW) object, for example.

Small has added coverage of behaviors and of the expandable API, including the Net Xtras, while maintaining the tutorial content that proved popular in the first edition of this book. He does not touch upon the changes to Lingo made in Director 7, however. --David Wall

Product Description
Have you wanted to acquire that essential programming edge which will allow you to harness the full power of lists and objects? Are you looking to create innovative Director products for the Internet at the highest level of technical expertise? Have you reached that stage of using Lingo where the only next step you can take is to finally understand object-oriented programming?

If you have said "yes" to any of the above, you have the right book in your hands. It is the first choice of both professionals and learners alike and is the most frequently recommended book on the Director User Internet forums for understanding the black art of OOPS and taking Lingo programming to areas the manuals never reach.

THis second edition covers two major advances in Director which have opened up new vistas to users. Behaviours are easy to conceptualize, and allow those who have very little programming knowledge to design an object-orientated programming (OOP) style. The new Application programming Interface (API) introduced along with a set of Net Xtras has transormed Director from aclosed application into an open system, allowing it to become the new killer app for thr Internet and the Web.

What readers said about the first edition...

...for my money it's the best Director book in the market.

Lingo Sorcery is amazing. It's not a "how to" book per se, (though it has lots of how to in it) it's a "how to" book with a lot of accompanying thoughts on how most effectively to think about OOP and multimedia design from an organic point of view.

In my opinion, Lingo Sorcery is easily the best info on OOP for Lingo.

I am finally starting to get the hang of OOPing, but I heard Peter's book is awesome.

See some crazy (but interesting) examples of ways to use OOP with Lingo, read Lingo Sorcery by Peter Small. It's amazing. It will really get your creative juices flowing.

If you purchase the book, you will increase your understanding of lingo and you will increase your frustration level trying to make the scripts work.

For the price, it should have a companion cd.