Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 for Mac, PC
Contents
1. Figure 1 3 The Using Flash Help screen Multiple Help manuals Flash Help contains several sections Getting Started contains a basic overview of Flash and creating a Flash movie Using Flash is the main Help manual ActionScript Reference Guide explains how to use ActionScript which is the programming language that you use to create complex interactive movies See Chapter 10 to find out more ActionScript Dictionary is a thorough listing of all ActionScript terms Using Components explains how to use components did you guess which we explain in Chapter 10 Click the How Do I tab in the Help panel to find some tutorials and brief explanations of common tasks in Flash To search for a term click the Search button Then enter the term and click Search You can then choose from the list of topics Finding more help on the Web Macromedia offers some support on its Web site To access it choose Help Flash Support Center which takes you to www macromedia com support _ d54358X Ch0l qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 21 Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 2 flash There you can search the technical document and tutorials for answers to your questions Try It Vou ll Like It TE Figure 1 4 A company logo that could stand some animation oe Perhaps by now yov re getting impatient to try out Flash Getting started is easy You collect a2. GScene1 H alal Bl afa iors oos lt AGHNOe 7 ADDAA Bi Ra nbow Resources lt movie of the year fa i Frame lt Frame Label gt Label type Motion Sound None Tween Ease 0 Effect ik o w Repeat v No sound selected Event Rotate Auto Syne Orient to path d54358X Ch0l qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 27 Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 3 Click the HTML tab 4 Deselect the Loop check box in the Playback section to clear it 5 Click Publish and then click OK to close the dialog box With scarcely a blip Flash publishes your movie and creates two files one named Movie of the Year swf assuming you used that name and Movie of the Year html They re in the same folder as your fla movie file Movie of the Year swf is the file that your browser reads to play the animation Movie of the Year html contains the HTML code required to display your movie on a Web page Open your Web browser 7 Choose FileOpen and find Movie of the Year htm1 or whatever 10 you named your movie file You may need to click Browse and navigate to the file Double click the file Click OK to close the Open dialog box if necessary Your browser opens the HTML document and reads its instructions to pl
3. left area of the word then choose ModifyConvert to Symbol again and click OK Now all the letters of the word Resources are a single object Click the Zoom Control drop down list box and choose 100 so that you can see the entire logo Click above and to the left of the logo and drag to the lower right to select the entire logo Hold down the Shift key and click each word to remove both words from the selection Now the design portion of the logo is selected Press F8 the keyboard shortcut to create a symbol and click OK in the Convert to Symbol dialog box Flash creates a symbol from the lines of the logo s design See Chapter 7 to find out more about symbols Putting your graphics on layers Placing different components on different layers is required when you re ani mating You need to use layers to organize your movie and keep shapes sepa rate so that they don t bump into each other See Chapter 6 for the complete story on layers _ d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 24 cb 24 Parti ABlast of Flash To split your three symbols onto three separate layers you can use a convenient feature of Flash MX 2004 Distribute to Layers Follow these steps 1 Click the Selection tool on the Tools panel if it s not already selected 2 Drag diagonally across the entire logo including the two words to select it You should see two rectangles inside one bigger rectangle All three objects i
4. box so you can start anew movie Ctrl O Windows or 3 O Mac Open an existing movie Ctrl S Windows or 3 S Mac Save your movie Don t forget to use this shortcut often 1 Ctrl X Windows or 3 X Mac Cut to the Clipboard Chapter 4 explains more about using the Clipboard Ctrl C Windows or 3 C Mac Copy to the Clipboard Ctrl V Windows or 3 V Mac Paste from the Clipboard _ 17 d54358X Ch01 qxd 18 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 18 Part l A Blast of Flash ar Ctrl Z Windows or Z Mac Undo Would you believe that by default Flash remembers your last 100 actions and can undo them What a relief The only problem is that Flash doesn t provide a drop down list of each action so you re somewhat in the dark about what the next Undo will undo Think of it as a journey into the long forgotten past See Appendix A for details on customizing the number of Undos that Flash remembers Ctrl Y Windows or 3 Y Mac Redo redoes actions that you undid by using the Undo button Got that This button remembers just as many actions as the Undo button If you undo more actions than you want click Redo or press Ctrl Y 88 Y until you re back where you want to be Using the Undo and Redo buttons is like traveling through Flash time and it gives you lots of slack while you re working Ctrl Q Windows or 3 Q Mac Exit Flash We mention other keyboard shortcuts throughout this book when we
5. effects you can distinguish your Web site from the also rans Creating animation isn t hard and you don t have to be a professional graphic artist either Anyone can create simple animations to enhance a Web site it just takes a little time To find the most up to date Web sites that use Flash check out the Macromedia site at www macromedia com flash and choose Showcase Case Studies Don t get discouraged by seeing some of the truly professional results at these sites You can start with a simple animated site and go from there Chapter 17 lists ten great Web sites that use Flash _ d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 11 cb Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 Understanding What Vou Can Create with Flash MX 2004 You can use Flash MX 2004 to create simple animation to add to your Web page Or you can create an entire Web page or site and incorporate text graphics interactive buttons and animation You can even program small applications in Flash This book helps you use Flash to create a simple or complex Web site The following list describes some ways that you can manipulate text graphics and sound by using Flash MX 2004 Create still or animated text on your Web page You can choose to stop the animation after a few seconds or repeat it while your viewers view the page Use Flash tools to create your own graphics for your Web page or import graphics You can lay out an entire Web page gr
6. object which can get pretty confusing Each line in the logo s design is also separate But you want your words to stay together and the little design too So combining each word and the logo into a symbol is necessary d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 23 air Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 2 3 To turn the words and the logo into symbols follow these steps 1 Click the Zoom Control drop down list box at the upper right corner of the Stage area and choose 200 Use the scroll bar to scroll the words of the logo into view if necessary 2 Click the Selection tool on the Tools panel if it s not already selected 3 Click the upper right corner of the word Rainbow just above and to the right of the w and drag to the lower left corner of the R Dragging from right to left makes it easier to avoid selecting the logo at the same time You should see the entire word selected If not click out side the word and try again Choose Modify Convert to Symbol In the Convert to Symbol dialog box click Graphic for the behavior and then click OK It is normally good practice to name the symbol but not necessary for this exercise When you click OK Flash places a box around the word so that you can see that it s one object Repeat the procedure outlined in Steps 3 and 4 with the word Resources In this case you may want to start clicking and dragging from the upper
7. Timeline is the layer list When you open a new movie you see only one layer unimaginatively named Layer 1 A layer is like a sheet of transparent acetate on which you draw objects Layers help you keep objects from running into each other causing unfortunate messy results You organize your entire movie by using layers For exam ple if you want to keep some text constant throughout the movie but ani mate a bouncing dot you would give the dot its own layer and animate it on that layer The layer list has room for more layers and you can add as many layers as you want Chapter 6 gives you the lowdown on layers You can move the bottom edge of the Timeline to make room for displaying more layers Hover the mouse cursor over the bottom line until you see the two headed arrow and drag downward To the right of Layer 1 you see a bunch of rectangles each representing a frame Actually before you start using the Timeline they re just potential frames like unexposed frames on a roll of film By default each frame lasts Y 2 of a second Each layer has its own row of frames because you can have different animations or objects on each layer A keyframe is a frame that defines some change in your animation In some animations every frame is a keyframe Other animations need keyframes for only the first and last frames You don t use the Timeline until you re ready to animate While you work how ever you should organize your objec
8. What It Does View Helps you get a better view by letting you zoom in and out show or hide various parts of the screen and view a grid for easy layout Insert Enables you to insert symbols Chapter 7 explains this topic insert and delete frames and keyframes see Chapter 9 for more insert layers covered in Chapter 6 and create motion tweens see Chapter 9 Modify Helps you modify symbols frames scenes or the entire movie Offers tools for transforming aligning grouping ungrouping and breaking objects apart Text Enables you to format text Commands Enables you to re use and manage saved commands You can save commands from the History panel See Chapter 4 Control Provides options that let you control the playing of movies test movies and scenes engage certain interactive functions and mute sounds Window Enables you to open lots of things including a new window panels that help you control objects the Library more on the Library in Chapter 2 windows for creating interactive controls explained in Chapter 10 and the Movie Explorer to help manage your movie see Chapter 12 Help Comes to the rescue when you need help The shortcuts are displayed on the menus next to the command name Here are some of the most commonly used keyboard shortcuts For more short cuts see the tear out Cheat Sheet at the front of this book Ctrl N Windows or N Mac Open the New Document dialog
9. animation on the Web In a nutshell here s an overview of how you use the system 1 Create a Flash movie by creating graphics and animating them over the duration of the movie 2 Use the Publish command within Flash to publish the movie into a Flash Player file that a browser can display At the same time Flash creates the appropriate HyperText Markup Language HTML code that you need for your Web page 3 Insert HTML code into your HTML document that references the Flash Player file It s similar to adding a graphic to a Web page Or you can use the HTML code alone as a new Web page 4 Upload the new or edited HTML document and the Flash Player file to the location where you keep other files for your Web pages 5 Open your browser navigate to your Web page and presto there s your cool animation on your Web page You need the Flash Player to see the effects that Flash creates These days the Flash Player comes installed with most computer systems and browsers so most people can view Flash driven Web sites immediately without any spe cial download or preparation When you display a Web site that contains Flash effects your system uses the Flash Player to play the animation Users who don t have a Flash Player can download it for free from Macromedia at www macromedia com shockwave download index cgi P1_Prod_Version ShockwaveF lash Web sites are getting more and more sophisticated By using animation and special
10. aphically or add graphics to only a part of a Web page Animate graphics and make objects appear and disappear by using the transparency feature Objects can move get bigger or smaller or rotate Flash also lets you morph that is transform shapes into new shapes Fill shapes and text with gradients which are colors that gradually change into new colors You can even fill shapes and text with bitmap images that you import into Flash For example you could fill the letters of your name with dozens of flowers You aren t a flower child any more Create Web page buttons that not only lead your viewers wherever you want them to go but also change shape or color at the same time You can make buttons change when you pass your mouse over them People who view your page can click a button to display a movie anima tion or start a small application Add sound or video to your movie You can control how long the sound or music plays and whether it loops to play continuously You can play video files as well Create menus that viewers can use to navigate your site You can create navigation tools as well as forms check boxes and other inter face elements As you can see you can go far with Flash if you want And why not It s great fun d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 12 cb 2 Parti ABlast of Flash Determining When Not to Use Flash MX 2004 If Flash MX 2004 is so wonderful why doesn t every Web site de
11. as to the desktop To rename the alias click the alias on your desktop Then click the text beneath the icon Type Flash MX 2004 or whatever you want and press Enter Now you can just double click the icon to open Flash Creating a new movie Files that you create by using Flash are commonly called movies When you start Flash you re immediately ready to create a new movie The startup screen appears by default In the Create New section choose Flash Document If you have already opened a movie and have the menus available choose File New In the New Document dialog box choose Flash Document from the General tab and then click OK You usually start by creating or importing some graphics To find out more about working with graphics see Chapter 3 Opening an existing movie If you want to work on a movie you ve already created when you first open Flash choose it from the Open a Recent Item section or choose Open to find the file If you ve already opened a movie and have the menus available press Ctrl O Windows or 8 0 Mac or choose File Open then double click the movie to open it The first frame appears on your screen and you can edit the movie any way that you want Windows users can click Open on the Standard toolbar If the Standard tool bar isn t displayed choose Window Toolbars Main _ d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 14 cb 14 Part I A Blast of Flash Taking a Look Around D Figur
12. ay the Flash movie Sit back and watch it roll Don t blink or you ll miss it If you do miss it click Refresh in your browser You can see the movie in Figure 1 6 When you finish watching the movie close your browser You can find the Movie of the Year files fla html and swf in the Ch01 folder on the CD ROM Exiting Flash When you finish creating something in Flash choose FileExit Windows or choose Flash MX 2004 Quit Mac 27 d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 28 28 Parti ABlast of Flash FCS Figure 1 6 The Movie of the Year animation in detail
13. ayout of panels you like Set up the panels and choose Window Save Panel Layout In the Save Panel Layout dialog box that opens give the layout a name and click OK To restore that layout at any time choose Window Panel Sets and choose your very own layout Discovering the Flash menus Most drawing functions are available only in the Tools panel Similarly you often use the Timeline as we discuss in Following a timeline later in this chapter for creating animation Almost every other function in Flash is ona menu somewhere You just need to find it In general we discuss the specific menu functions where appropriate throughout this book Table 1 1 offers a brief overview of the menus Table 1 1 Flash Menus Menu What It Does Flash Mac only Enables you to set preferences create keyboard shortcuts and quit Flash File Enables you to open and close files save files import and export files print publish movies for the Web send a movie as an e mail attachment Windows only and quit Flash Edit Provides commands that let you undo and redo actions cut copy and paste to and from the Clipboard delete duplicate select and deselect objects copy and paste entire frames edit symbols see Chapter 7 for the whole story on symbols set preferences and create keyboard shortcuts for commands _ d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 17 cb Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 Menu
14. d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 9 cb Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 In This Chapter Introducing Flash Figuring out what you can create with Flash MX 2004 Deciding when not to use Flash MX 2004 Perusing the screen Using Help Creating your first animation Closing Flash O upon a time in a galaxy that seems far far away by now there was the Internet which contained only plain unformatted text Then came the Web and we gained text formatting and graphics Then the Web grew up a little and Web page graphics got fancier with things like small animations in banner ads But people being used to movies and TV wanted an even more animated and interactive Web experience Along came Flash Flash created by Macromedia Inc is the software that runs some of the coolest Web sites around When you surf the Web and see sites that con tain animation across the entire page or buttons that do spectacular stunts when you click them you re probably seeing some Flash magic If you create a Web site you can use Flash to rev up the basics so that your view ers will say Wow d54358X Ch01 qxd 10 Parti ABlast of Flash 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 10 In this chapter you find out what Flash is all about what the screen looks like and how to use Help Then you create your first simple animation so that all the rest of this book makes sense Discovering Flash Flash offers a powerful system for creating
15. discuss their corresponding commands You should note although it s not a shortcut that you can find the Zoom Control box in the upper right corner of your screen Click the arrow and choose a zoom factor to zoom in and out Zooming doesn t change the actual size of objects it just makes them look bigger or smaller You aren t limited to the choices on the Zoom drop down list Type a number in the Zoom Control box and press Enter to set your own zoom factor For example type 85 to set the zoom factor to 85 percent Staging your movies The white box in the center of your screen is the Stage Think of the Stage as a movie screen where you place objects You can place graphics and text there and then animate them Flash also plays back movies on the Stage Following a timeline The Timeline window divides your movie into frames Each frame represents a tiny stretch of time such as 2 of a second Creating a movie is simply a matter of assembling frames which are then quickly played in order Chapter 9 explains in detail how to make using the Timeline completely pain less For now you should just understand the basics See Figure 1 2 for the basic Timeline d54358X Ch0l qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 19 cb Figure 1 2 The Timeline is your key to managing animation ee avr Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 9 Dit Uf a Bl 1 120fps 00s e gt On the left side of the
16. e 1 1 The Flash screen If you ve never created animation the Flash screen is different from the screens in other programs that you may be used to so take the time to get to know it You can also customize the Flash screen Figure 1 1 shows one possible display If your screen opens with several rectangular panels strewn about the screen or docked on various sides don t worry about them now We explain how to open and use these panels throughout this book but you don t need them for this chapter If they drive you crazy right click each panel s title bar and choose Close Panel from the menu that appears See Appendix B for a full layout of each panel and toolbar Tools panel Layer list Menu Timeline Zoom Control box ee eee ae ZZ el File Edit View Insei Modify Text Commands Control Window Help gt v0F ws ZO peo 4 alal wl al a iots oos lt f Options modifiers Stage d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 15 cb Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 Tooling around the toolbars Flash contains two toolbars in the Mac version the Tools panel and the Controller To display or hide these toolbars choose Window Tools or Window Controller In Windows Flash offers the four toolbars described in the following list To display or hide the first three listed here choose Window Toolbars and click the toolbar that you wan
17. few ideas put together some art add animation save your movie and publish it Then you view it in a browser either online or offline That s the gratifying part In the following sections you get to give Flash a try by working through a basic animation Conceiving your first animation Suppose that you want to add an animated logo to a home page that you ve already set up You want the animation to run when the page loads and then stop Figure 1 4 shows the Rainbow Resources company logo unanimated of course that you can find on the CD that comes with this book Ra nbow Suppose that you want the word Rainbow to fly into your page from the right and the word Resources to fly in from the left At the same time you want the graphic to rotate 180 degrees You find out in the following section how to create this animation Creating flashy drawings You can use Flash to create a company logo but importing one from this book s CD ROM is simpler Often you import existing graphics such as a company logo from a file rather than create them from scratch Chapter 3 explains how to import and manipulate graphics _ d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 22 cb 22 Parti ABlast of Flash gener amp If you re going through the steps and make a mistake choose Edit Undo or press Ctrl Z 8 Z and try again You can use Undo repeatedly to undo several steps if necessary To import the Rainbow Resource
18. g the Right Start Well begun is half done as the saying goes The easiest way to begin using Flash MX 2004 is with a shortcut or alias right on your desktop Double click the Flash icon and you re on your way See Appendix A for information on installing Flash Starting Flash on a PC Whether you installed Flash from the CD or by downloading it from the Macromedia Web site onto your PC you may or may not have a shortcut _ d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 13 ar Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 13 on your desktop To create one choose Start Programs Macromedia Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Right click the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 item and choose Create Shortcut from the pop up menu that appears The new shortcut appears on the menu Drag that shortcut to your desktop To rename the shortcut click the shortcut on your desktop Then click the text beneath the icon Type Flash MX 2004 or whatever you want and press Enter Just double click the icon to open Flash Starting Flash on a Mac Whether you installed Flash from the CD or by downloading from the Macromedia Web site onto your Mac you may or may not have an alias on your desktop To create one open your drive and find the file named Flash MX 2004 in the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 folder Click the file to select it Then choose File Make Alias This action creates the alias in the same folder named Flash MX 2004 Alias Drag that ali
19. ifyTransform Rotate 90 CW command to rotate the design a total of 180 degrees Click the logo s highlighted layer anywhere between the first and 30th frames and choose Motion from the Tween drop down list of the Properties panel If necessary drag the horizontal scroll box until the Stage is in the center of your screen Otherwise you won t be able to see the entire animation and you don t want to miss this one d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 26 eej Figure 1 5 Before you run the animation Rainbow appears to the right and Resources to the left and the line logo is rotated Ee Part I A Blast of Flash 8 44 AM Page 26 12 Click the first frame of any layer Your screen should look like the one shown in Figure 1 5 13 Press Enter Return and watch the animation Start writing your Academy Award acceptance speech 14 Save your movie again by choosing File Save Publishing your first animation for posterity You can t watch the animation in a Web browser until you publish it and insert it into an HTML document To do so follow these steps 1 Click the Stage to change the display of the Property inspector You should see the Settings button next to the Publish label 2 Click Settings in the Property inspector The Publish Settings dialog box opens File Edit View Insert Modify Text Commands Control Window Help gt Dy D Symbol 1 Deo
20. n the logo are selected 3 Choose Modify Timeline Distribute to Layers You now have three new layers named from Symbol 1 through Symbol 3 The three objects of the logo have been distributed to Symbol 1 through 3 and removed from Layer 1 4 Click outside the Stage to deselect any objects You re now ready for the animation process Making graphics move We explain earlier in this chapter that your goal is to have the word Rainbow fly in from the right and the word Resources to fly in from the left You also want the graphic to rotate 180 degrees at the same time What you see now is how the animation will end the last frame of the movie Follow these steps to create the last frame of the movie and save the file 1 For each of the three symbol layers click frame 30 of the Timeline and choose Insert Timeline Keyframe You can find out more about keyframes in Chapter 9 2 Choose FileSave and pick a location where you save other docu ments that you create ar We don t recommend saving the file in the Flash MX 2004 program folder it may get lost among your Flash program files 3 Give your movie a name such as Movie of the Year and click Save Flash creates a file named Movie of the Year fla Flash adds the fla for you because that s the filename extension for Flash movies d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 25 cb Chapter 1 Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004 2 5 Go back and c
21. nel Choose it from the Window panel To close an undocked panel Click its Close button To close a docked panel Right click Windows Control click Mac its title bar and choose Close Panel _ 15 d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 16 cb 6 Part I A Blast of Flash You can now stack panels just like you stack plastic containers in your refrig erator Drag a panel by its grabber and drag it beneath another panel to stack it You can also collapse or expand panels A collapsed panel only displays its title bar so it doesn t take up much space Use the arrow on the left side of the title bar to collapse or expand a panel or click its title bar Finally on Windows only there are new arrow buttons above panels that are docked at the bottom of your screen and to the left of panels docked at the right Click an arrow to collapse the panels to just the tiny arrow button Click the arrow again to expand the panels to their previous display The Property inspector is one of the most important panels This panel dis plays information about selected objects and you can modify objects in the Property inspector as well It is context sensitive which means that its con tents change according to what you re doing For example if you select a graphic object the Property inspector provides settings relating to that object and you can use the Property inspector to edit that object For the best in customization you can save any l
22. reate the beginning of your movie Flash can fill in all the blanks in between Follow these steps to create the beginning of the movie and the animation 1 10 11 If the Properties panel is not already open choose Window Properties to open it If the Properties panel is open but collapsed click the arrow at the left end of its title bar to expand the panel Select the word Rainbow Click the first frame of the Timeline in the highlighted row When you select the word Rainbow you can tell which layer it is on by looking at the highlighted layer Press and hold down the Shift key while you drag the word to the right just off the Stage into the gray area You may need to use the horizontal scroll bar to see the gray area Pressing Shift keeps the object from moving up or down while you drag to the right Click the word Rainbow s layer anywhere between the first and the 30th frame On the Tween drop down list of the Properties panel choose Motion You now see a solid arrow and a light blue color on the Timeline between the first and 30th frames Repeat Steps 2 4 for the word Resources When you move the word Resources hold down the Shift key and drag the word to the left just off the Stage Select the logo design and click the first frame of the Timeline in the highlighted row Choose Modify Transform Rotate 90 CW to rotate the design 90 degrees clockwise Repeat the Mod
23. s logo into Flash follow these steps The steps may vary if you re importing some other graphic in a different format 1 Start Flash See the instructions in Starting Flash on a PC or Starting Flash on a Mac earlier in this chapter if you need help 2 Choose Flash Document from the Create New section of the Startup screen You see a spanking new movie on your screen 3 Choose File gt Import Import to Stage ne CD The Import dialog box opens Browse the dialog box until you find rainbow gif in the Samples Ch01 folder of the CD ROM 5 Click to select rainbow gif and then click Open Q If you have difficulty importing the file copy it to your hard drive and try Steps 3 5 again You see the logo on your screen You need to break the logo into pieces and make it a vector graphic so that you can animate it 6 Choose Modify Bitmap Trace Bitmap In the Trace Bitmap dialog box set the color threshold to 100 the minimum area to 1 the curve fit to Pixels and the corner threshold to Many Corners Click OK in the Trace Bitmap dialog box Flash creates a vector graphic and breaks up the graphic into individual components The entire graphic however is selected 7 Click anywhere outside the graphic to deselect it You ve got your logo Now you need to set it up for animation Turning your objects into symbols In the logo that you imported in the preceding section each letter is a separate
24. signer use it Why aren t most Web sites created completely with Flash Here s the other side of the story Although the vector graphics and animation of Flash load quickly they don t load as quickly as plain text and simple graphics Adding a movie to your Web page creates some overhead There s no point in using Flash if you want simple pages consisting of mostly text and a few graphics that you want to stay put and not move You can create certain graphic effects much more easily by using bitmap graphics Painted brushstroke and textured effects are examples Graphic artists create these types of graphics by using graphics editing software and the results are bitmaps Similarly to add photographs to your Web page you need to scan the photographs as bitmaps Flash creates vector graphics defined mathematically which are different from bitmap graphics defined by lots of dots You can find out more about bitmap and vector graphics in Chapter 2 If you want simple animation such as a few blinking dots or a marquee effect animated G Fs the animated bitmap graphics that you often see on the Web are smaller than Flash movies so they load faster You can create animated GIFs by using animated GIF editing software Flash provides little in the way of 3 D graphics or animation For those you need to go to more sophisticated software such as Poser or 3D Studio Max See Chapter 14 for more 3 D possibilities in Flash Gettin
25. t to display or hide Here is a description of the toolbars Standard toolbar Windows only Called the Main toolbar contains commonly used commands Many of these are familiar from other Windows programs By default Flash does not display the Standard toolbar Status toolbar Windows only Contains a brief description of tool bar buttons and tells you when the Caps Lock and Num Lock buttons are on By not displaying this mostly useless toolbar you can reclaim some real estate on your screen By default Flash does not display the Status toolbar Controller Lets you control the playback of movies For more information see Chapter 9 Tools panel Contains all the tools that you need to draw and edit objects At the bottom of the Tools panel are options that modify how the tools function See Chapters 3 and 4 for a complete description of the features of the Tools panel Using panels Panels give you access to the many Flash settings You access them from the Window menu The specific panels are discussed throughout this book In this section we explain how to keep control over your panels Most panels are dockable which means that they can sit at the side or bottom of your Flash window without covering up your work You control panels by doing the following To dock a panel Drag it to the right or bottom of your screen To undock a panel Drag it from its grabber at the left edge of its title bar To open or close a pa
26. ts on separate layers Don t worry you can always move an object from one layer to another Getting Help in a Flash E This book is all that you need to start creating great animations but we would be remiss if we didn t tell you about the Flash Help system To use Flash Help choose Help Using Flash or Help Help Then click the Table of Contents button as shown here If you chose Help Using Flash you see a screen like the one shown in Figure 1 3 _ d54358X Ch01 qxd 9 16 03 8 44 AM Page 20 20 Parti ABlast of Flash i w Help S Help How Do I x BD U AA update SH TD Getting started gt Using Flash ActionScript Reference Guide Working with Flash Documents ActionScript Dictionary When you create and save Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Using Components and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 documents within the Flash authoring environment the documents are in FLA file format In order to display a document in the Macromedia Flash Player you must publish or export the document as a SWF file Note For information on publishing or exporting a file see Publishing or Exporting You can add media assets to a Flash document and manage the assets in the library and you can use the Movie Explorer to view and organize all the elements in a Flash document The Undo and Redo commands the History panel and the Commands menu let you automate tasks in a document
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