As you design and develop a movie, you can print frames to review 2 What You’ll Do Examine the Flash Window Use the Timeline Work with Layers View and Organize Layers Change Layer Proper
Trang 1Working Within the Flash
Environment
Introduction
Getting to know the Flash authoring environment makes you
more effective and efficient as you create movies You’ll get
to know the parts of the Flash window, which include the
Timeline, Stage, panels, and Property Inspector
The Tools panel, also known as the Toolbox, contains tools
that you can use to draw, paint, select, and modify artwork
The Timeline represents the overall structure of a Flash
docu-ment and controls the content The Timeline consists of
lay-ers, frames, and scenes that make up a Flash document
Layers are like transparent sheets stacked on top of one
another Each layer can contain different images that appear
on the Stage A frame displays content at a specific moment
on the Stage The order in which frames appear in the
Timeline determines the order in which they appear in the
document As you play a document, the playhead moves
through the Timeline displaying the current frame with each
layer on the Stage If a project requires many animation
sequences with hundreds of frames, you can organize the
animations into scenes to make them easier to work with and
manage Below the Timeline is the Stage, which provides a
place to compose the content for individual frames Panels
are windows that allow you to view, organize, and change
elements and related options in a document The Property
Inspector is a specialized panel that allows you to change
object-specific attributes and options
Flash uses built-in keyboard shortcuts designed
specifi-cally for Flash The built-in keyboard shortcuts are organized
into sets, which you can duplicate and customize to create
your own personalized set Flash allows to you set
prefer-ences to customize the way you work in the program As you
design and develop a movie, you can print frames to review
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What You’ll Do Examine the Flash Window Use the Timeline
Work with Layers View and Organize Layers Change Layer Properties Use Guide Layers Work with Frames Work with Scenes Use the Edit Bar and Main Toolbar Resize Panels
Use the Tools Panel Work with Panels Dock and Undock Panels Group and Ungroup Panels Create a Workspace Create Keyboard Shortcuts Set Flash Preferences Work with Page Setup Print a Document
Trang 2When you start Flash, the program window
displays several windows of varying sizes you
can use to create a movie These windows
include the Timeline/Stage, various panels,
and the Property Inspector Depending on
your installation and previous program usage,
not all of these windows may appear, or
addi-tional ones may be visible You'll do the bulk
of your work in Flash with these windows
In Flash, windows appear in the work-space with a title bar, such as the Timeline window, or in a panel A panel is a window you can collapse, expand, and group with other panels, known as a panel group, to improve accessibility and workflow A panel appears with a shaded header bar, which includes the window title and additional options A panel group consists of either indi-vidual panels stacked one on top of the other
Examining the Flash Window
Document Window
Displays open Flash
documents, which includes a
Timeline, Edit bar, and Stage.
Timeline
Gives you a visual represent-ation of every frame, layer and scene in the document
Stage
Provides a place to compose the
content for individual frames,
which includes drawing artwork
or arranging imported graphics
Panel Windows
Gives you access to authoring tools and attribute settings for elements.
Property Inspector
Displays information about the properties and attributes of tools and graphic elements
Tools Panel
Contains
drawing and
other related
tools to
create and
manipulate
graphics.
Main Toolbar
Contains buttons for commonly used commands Point to a button to display a Tooltip.
Search Box
Allows you to search Adobe Community Help online
Trang 3or related panels organized together with
tabs, such as the Components panel, to
navi-gate from one panel to another The Flash
window displays the menu bar at the top The
menu bar also contains a Workspace menu,
Search box, CS Live menu, Close button, and
resizing buttons
A menu is a list of commands that you use
to accomplish specific tasks A command is a
directive that accesses a feature of a program
Flash has its own set of menus, which are
located on the menu bar along the top of the
Flash window On a menu, a check mark
iden-tifies a feature that is currently selected (that
is, the feature is enabled or on) To disable
(turn off) the feature, you click the command
again to remove the check mark A menu can
contain several check-marked features A
bul-let (Win) or diamond (Mac) also indicates that
an option is enabled, but a menu can contain
only one bullet-or diamond-marked feature
per menu section To disable a command with
a bullet or diamond next to it, you must select
a different option in the section on the menu
When you perform a command frequently,
it's faster, and sometimes more convenient, to
use a shortcut key, which is a keyboard
alter-native to using the mouse When a shortcut
key is available, it is listed beside the
com-mand on the menu, such as A+F3 (Mac) or
Ctrl+F3 (Win) for the Properties command on
the Window menu
Flash (for Windows) also includes a Main
toolbar The Main toolbar contains buttons for
the most frequently used commands Clicking
a button on a toolbar is often faster than
click-ing a menu and then clickclick-ing a command
When you position the pointer over a button,
a tooltip appears, displaying the button name
The Tools panel contains a set of tools you
can use to create shapes, such as lines,
rec-tangles, rounded recrec-tangles, and ellipses You can fill shapes with a color, pattern, or custom tile The shapes and buttons you create in Flash are saved as media elements in the layers
The Document window displays open Flash documents, which include a Timeline, Edit bar, and Stage Flash (for Windows) also includes tabs to make it easier to switch back and forth between documents At the top of the Document window is the Edit bar The Edit bar displays what editing mode you are work-ing in, and allows you to switch scenes
The Timeline organizes and controls media elements over a linear timeline in rows called channels and in columns called frames
The Timeline displays a movie's Timeline and monitors the playback frame-by-frame A frame represents a single point in a movie
The Timeline includes layers that control dif-ferent parts of the movie
The Stage is the visible portion of a movie,
on which you determine where your media elements appear The Stage is the rectangle area below the Timeline where you place graphic content, including vector art, text boxes, buttons, imported bitmap graphics, or audio and video clips You can define the properties of your Stage, such as its size and color
The Property Inspector provides a conven-ient way to view and change attributes of any selected object or multiple objects on the Stage in your movie After you select an object, relevant commands and associated fields for it appear in the Property Inspector
You can apply filters, such as gradient con-trols to text, buttons, and movie clips In addi-tion, you can display the Property Inspector horizontally (like previous versions of Flash)
or vertically
Trang 4Using the Timeline
Change the Timeline Display
◆ To lengthen or shorten layer name
fields, drag the bar separating the
layer names and the frames in the
Timeline
◆ To heighten or shorten the
Timeline, drag the bar separating
the Timeline and the Stage
◆ To hide or show the Timeline
panel, click the gray bar to the
right of the Timeline tab
Resize the Timeline Display
Do one of the following:
◆ If the Timeline is docked to the
program window, drag the bar
separating the Timeline from
the program window
◆ If the Timeline is not docked to
the program window, drag the
size box in the lower right
corner
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The Timeline represents the overall structure of a Flash document and controls the content The Timeline consists of layers, frames, and scenes that make up a Flash document Layers appear on the left side
of the Timeline and frames contained in each layer appear in a row to the right of the layer The Timeline header above the frames displays the frame numbers At the bottom of the Timeline, a Status bar appears, displaying the current frame indicator, the current rate indicator, and the elapsed time indicator Sometimes it is hard to work with frames in
a small view in the Timeline You can change the size of frames and dis-play frames with tinted cells In addition, you can disdis-play thumbnail previews of frame content, which is useful for viewing animations
Drag to change length
of layer name fields.
Drag edge to change height
of Timeline.
Drag to resize Timeline.
Trang 5Change the Display of Frames in
the Timeline
Click the Frame View button in the
Timeline
Select one of the following options
from the list:
◆ To change the width of frame
cells, click Tiny, Small, Normal,
Medium, or Large.
◆ To display thumbnails of the
content of each frame scaled to
fit the Timeline frames, click
Preview.
◆ To display thumbnails of each
full frame, click Preview In
Context.
This is useful for viewing
animation movement within
their frames
◆ To decrease the height of frame
cell rows, click Short.
◆ To turn frame sequence tinting
on and off, click Tinted Frames.
◆ To disregard audio in the
Timeline, click Scrub Audio
(New !)
◆ To close the current tab, click
Close To close all the tabs,
click Close Group.
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Preview in frame view
See Also
See “Working with Panels” on page 52
for information on using the Timeline
panel
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Trang 6Working with Layers
Create a New Layer
Click the layer or folder above
which you want to insert a layer
Click the New Layer button at the
bottom of the Timeline
The new layer appears above the
selected layer
Create a New Layer Folder
Click the layer or folder above
which you want to insert a layer
folder
Click the New Folder button at the
bottom of the Timeline
The new layer folder appears
above the selected layer
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Layers are like transparent sheets stacked on top of one another Each layer can contain different images that appear on the Stage You can draw and edit objects on one layer without affecting objects on another layer Layers in a document are listed in the left column of the Timeline
Before you can work with a layer, you need to select it, or make it active A pencil icon next to a layer or layer folder indicates it is active
Only one layer can be active at a time, even though you can select more than one layer A new document comes with one layer, but you can add more to organize content on the Stage As you create multiple layers of related content, you can create layer folders to make it easier
to manage the layers
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New layer
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New layer folder
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Active layer
Did You Know?
Flash names layers in order based on
the highest number If you add Layers 2
and 3, and then delete Layer 2 The
next time you add a layer, Flash names
it Layer 4
Trang 7Rename a Layer or Folder
Double-click the name of a layer
or folder
Type a name
Press Return (Mac) or Enter (Win)
Delete a Layer or Folder
Select the layer or folder you want
to delete
Click the Delete button at the
bottom of the Timeline
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Did You Know?
There are several ways to select a
layer You can click the name of a layer
or folder in the Timeline, click a frame
in the Timeline of the layer you want to
select, or select an object on the Stage
that is located on the layer you want to
select
You can select multiple layers To
select contiguous layers or folders,
click the first layer or folder, and then
Shift+click the last layer or folder To
select noncontiguous layers or folders,
A+click (Mac) or Ctrl+click (Win) the
layers or folders you want to select