Getting Started with Flash Trademarks Add Life to the Web, Afterburner, Aftershock, Andromedia, Allaire, Animation PowerPack, Aria, Attain, Authorware, Authorware Star, Backstage, Bright Tiger, Clustercats, ColdFusion, Contribute, Design In Motion, Director, Dream Templates, Dreamweaver, Drumbeat 2000, EDJE, EJIPT, Extreme 3D, Fireworks, Flash, Flash Lite, Flex, Fontographer, FreeHand, Generator, HomeSite, JFusion, JRun, Kawa, Know Your Site, Knowledge Objects, Knowledge Stream, Knowledge Track, LikeMinds, Lingo, Live Effects, MacRecorder Logo and Design, Macromedia, Macromedia Action!, Macromedia Breeze, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia M Logo and Design, Macromedia Spectra, Macromedia xRes Logo and Design, MacroModel, Made with Macromedia, Made with Macromedia Logo and Design, MAGIC Logo and Design, Mediamaker, Movie Critic, Open Sesame!, Roundtrip, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, Sitespring, SoundEdit, Titlemaker, UltraDev, Web Design 101, what the web can be, and Xtra 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. Apple Disclaimer APPLE COMPUTER, INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE ENCLOSED COMPUTER SOFTWARE PACKAGE, ITS MERCHANTABILITY OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES IS NOT PERMITTED BY SOME STATES. THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. THERE MAY BE OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU MAY HAVE WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO STATE. Copyright © 2004 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 prior written approval of Macromedia, Inc. Acknowledgments Director: Erick Vera Project Management: Julee Burdekin, Erick Vera Writing: Jay Armstrong, Jody Bleyle, Mary Burger, Francis Cheng, Jen deHaan, Stephanie Gowin, Phillip Heinz, Shimul Rahim, Samuel R. Neff Managing Editor: Rosana Francescato Editing: Mary Ferguson, Mary Kraemer, Noreen Maher, Antonio Padial, Lisa Stanziano, Anne Szabla Production Management: Patrice O'Neill Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Christopher Basmajian, Aaron Begley, John Francis Second Edition: June 2004 Macromedia, Inc. 600 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94103 CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Getting Started . ......................................... 5 About Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 About Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 What's new in Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Guide to instructional media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Using the Start page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 CHAPTER 2: Installing Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 15 16 17 19 19 System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Installing and activating Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Configuration folders installed with Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing or removing Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Configuring a server for Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 3: Getting to Know the Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Using the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Using the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Using frames and keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Using layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 About the main toolbar and edit bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Using the Tools panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Using the grid, guides, and rulers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Using panels and the Property inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Setting preferences in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Customizing keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Using context menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Accessibility in the Flash authoring environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 3 CHAPTER 4: Building Your First Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Workflow for building an application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Examine a completed application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Create a new document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Add media content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Add navigation controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Add motion and basic interactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Test the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Publish and view the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 The next steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 4 Contents CHAPTER 1 Getting Started Welcome to Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004. Flash provides everything you need to create and deliver rich web content and powerful applications. Whether you're designing motion graphics or building data-driven applications, Flash has the tools necessary to produce great results and deliver the best user experience across multiple platforms and devices. This guide is designed to introduce you to Flash. The tutorial in this guide leads you through the process of creating a simple Flash application. This chapter contains the following sections: About Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 About Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 What's new in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Guide to instructional media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Using the Start page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 About Flash Flash is an authoring tool that allows you to create anything from a simple animation to a complex interactive web application, such as an online store. You can make your Flash applications media rich by adding pictures, sound, and video. Flash includes many features that make it powerful but easy to use, such as drag-and-drop user interface components, built-in behaviors that add ActionScript to your document, and special effects that you can add to objects. When you author in Flash you work in a Flash document, a file that, when saved, has the file extension .fla. When you are ready to deploy your Flash content, you publish it, creating a file with the extension .swf. Flash Player, described in the next section, runs the SWF file. 5 About Flash Player Macromedia Flash Player 7, which runs the applications that you create, installs by default along with Flash. Flash Player ensures that all SWF content is viewable and available consistently and across the broadest range of platforms, browsers, and devices. The Macromedia Flash Player is distributed with products from every major partner, including Microsoft, Apple, Netscape, AOL, and Opera, to bring rich content and applications immediately to over 516 million people worldwide. Flash Player is distributed freely to anyone who wants to use it. You can get the latest version of Flash Player at the Macromedia Flash Player Download Center at www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer. What's new in Flash There are now two editions of Flash: Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004. To verify which edition you have installed, select Help > About Flash in the application. Flash MX 2004 Flash MX 2004 is the perfect tool for the web designer, interactive media professional, or subject matter expert developing multimedia content. Emphasis is on creation, import, and manipulation of many types of media (audio, video, bitmaps, vectors, text, and data). Flash MX Professional 2004 Flash MX Professional 2004 is designed for advanced web designers and application builders. Flash MX Professional 2004 includes all the features of Flash MX 2004, along with several powerful new tools. It provides project-management tools for optimizing the workflow between the members of a web team made up of designers and developers. External scripting and capabilities for handling dynamic data from databases are some of the features that make Flash particularly suitable for large-scale, complex projects deployed using Flash Player along with a hybrid of HTML content. New features available in both Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 The new features in Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 provide greater productivity, enhanced rich media support, and streamlined publishing. Productivity Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 include many features designed specifically for streamlining previously complex tasks, thereby improving productivity: Timeline effects You can apply Timeline effects to any object on the Stage to quickly add transitions and animations such as fade-ins, fly-ins, blurs, and spins. For more information, see "Using Timeline effects" in Using Flash. Behaviors With behaviors, you can add interactivity to Flash content without writing a line of code. For example, you can use behaviors to include functionality that links to a website, loads sounds and graphics, controls playback of embedded videos, plays movie clips, and triggers data sources. For more information, see "Controlling instances with behaviors" in Using Flash. 6 Chapter 1: Getting Started Accessibility support in the authoring environment Accessibility support in the Flash authoring environment provides keyboard shortcuts for navigating and for using interface controls, letting you work with these interface elements without using the mouse. For more information, see "Accessibility in the Flash authoring environment" in Using Flash. Updated templates Flash includes updated templates for creating presentations, e-lear ...