Flash Tutorials Trademarks 1 Step RoboPDF, ActiveEdit, ActiveTest, Authorware, Blue Sky Software, Blue Sky, Breeze, Breezo, Captivate, Central, ColdFusion, Contribute, Database Explorer, Director, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, FlashCast, FlashHelp, Flash Lite, FlashPaper, Flash Video Encoder, Flex, Flex Builder, Fontographer, FreeHand, Generator, HomeSite, JRun, MacRecorder, Macromedia, MXML, RoboEngine, RoboHelp, RoboInfo, RoboPDF, Roundtrip, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, SoundEdit, Studio MX, UltraDev, and WebHelp are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in the United States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. Other product names, logos, designs, titles, words, or phrases mentioned within this publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and may be registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally. Third-Party Information This guide contains links to third-party websites that are not under the control of Macromedia, and Macromedia is not responsible for the content on any linked site. If you access a third-party website mentioned in this guide, then you do so at your own risk. Macromedia provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not imply that Macromedia endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content on those third-party sites. Speech compression and decompression technology licensed from Nellymoser, Inc. (www.nellymoser.com). SorensonTM SparkTM video compression and decompression technology licensed from Sorenson Media, Inc. Opera ® browser Copyright © 1995-2002 Opera Software ASA and its suppliers. All rights reserved. Macromedia Flash 8 video is powered by On2 TrueMotion video technology. © 1992-2005 On2 Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.on2.com. Visual SourceSafe is a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Copyright © 2005 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without written approval from Macromedia, Inc. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the owner or authorized user of a valid copy of the software with which this manual was provided may print out one copy of this manual from an electronic version of this manual for the sole purpose of such owner or authorized user learning to use such software, provided that no part of this manual may be printed out, reproduced, distributed, resold, or transmitted for any other purposes, including, without limitation, commercial purposes, such as selling copies of this documentation or providing paid-for support services. Acknowledgments Project Management: Sheila McGinn Writing: Jay Armstrong, Jen deHaan Managing Editor: Rosana Francescato Lead Editor: Lisa Stanziano Editing: Evelyn Eldridge, Mark Nigara, Lisa Stanziano, Anne Szabla Production Management: Patrice O'Neill, Kristin Conradi, Yuko Yagi Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Aaron Begley, Paul Benkman. John Francis, Geeta Karmarkar, Masayo Noda, Paul Rangel, Arena Reed, Mario Reynoso Special thanks to Jody Bleyle, Mary Burger, Lisa Friendly, Stephanie Gowin, Bonnie Loo, Mary Ann Walsh, Erick Vera, the beta testers, and the entire Flash and Flash Player engineering and QA teams. First Edition: September 2005 Macromedia, Inc. 601 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94103 Contents Chapter 1: Basic Tasks: Create a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Take a tour of the user interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Change background and Stage size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Change your view of the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 View the Library panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Add graphics to the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Add video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 View object properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Add video control behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Use the Movie Explorer to view the document structure . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Test the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Find help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Chapter 2: Basic Tasks: Creating a banner, Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Examine the completed FLA file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Creating a new document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Changing document properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Importing graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Introducing layers and the timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Test the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Chapter 3: Basic Tasks: Creating a banner, Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . 43 Examine the completed FLA file. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Adding text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Creating a symbol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Adding animation to a timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Creating a button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Writing simple actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Test the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 3 Chapter 4: Basic Tasks: Creating a banner, Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . .63 Examine the completed FLA file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Considering your audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Checking your publish settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Inserting Flash on a Dreamweaver site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 Using roundtrip editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Checking for Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Test the application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Chapter 5: Basic Tasks: Create Accessible Flash Content . . . . . 79 Set up your workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Make your document accessible to screen readers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Provide a document title and description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Provide a title and description for instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Specify that screen readers ignore elements in your document . . . . . 83 Change static text to dynamic text for accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Control the tab order and reading order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 About testing your document with screen readers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Chapter 6: Basic Tasks: Work with Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 Set up your workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Select a layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Hide and show layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Lock a layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Add and name a layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Change the order of layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Organize layers in a folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Add a mask layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Add a guide layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Delete a layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Chapter 7: Basic Tasks: Create an Application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Set up your workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Copy input and dynamic text fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Name text fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Add and name a Button component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Declare variables and values for the prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101 Specify values for input text fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 4 Contents Write a function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 Write an event handler for the component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104 Test your application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105 Chapter 8: Basic Tasks: Use Layout Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Set up your workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 Use guides to align an object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 Change the Stage size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109 Resize objects to match the Stage size. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Specify snap alignment settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Align an object using the alignment guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Align objects using the Align panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Snap objects to each other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Align objects using the Property inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Align objects using the grid and arrow keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Chapter 9: Basic Tasks: Create Symbols and Instances . . . . . . 117 Set up your workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 About creating symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 Create a graphic symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Duplicate and modify an instance of a symbol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 Modify a symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Create a movie clip symbol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122 Assign an instance name to the movie clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122 Add an effect to the movie clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...