MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX 2004-GETTING STARTED WITH... User manual

Getting Started with Flash

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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

3
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
System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Installing and activating Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Configuration folders installed with Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Changing or removing Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Configuring a server for Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
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

4 Contents
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

5
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.

6 Chapter 1: Getting Started
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.

What’s new in Flash 7
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-learning
applications, advertisements, mobile device applications, and other commonly used types of Flash
documents. For more informations, see “Using templates” in Using Flash.
Integrated Help system The new Help panel provides in-context reference, ActionScript
reference, and lessons in the Flash authoring environment. For more information, see “Using the
Help panel” in Using Flash.
Spell checker The spell checker searches your text for spelling errors. For more information,
see “Checking spelling” in Using Flash.
Document tabs Tabs for each open document are displayed at the top of the workspace so that
you can quickly locate and switch between open documents. For more information, see “Using
document tabs for multiple documents (Windows only)” in Using Flash.
Start page The Start page puts commonly used tasks at your fingertips, in a central page. For
more information, see “Using the Start page” on page 13.
Find and Replace The Find and Replace feature locates and replaces a text string, a font, a
color, a symbol, a sound file, a video file, or an imported bitmap file. For more information, see
“Using Find and Replace” in Using Flash.
Rich media support
New rich media support features enhance the quality of rich media presentations.
High-fidelity import High-fidelity import lets you import Adobe PDF and Adobe Illustrator 10
files and preserve accurate vector representation of your source files. For more information, see
“Importing Adobe Illustrator, EPS, or PDF files” in Using Flash.
Video Import wizard The Video Import wizard simplifies video encoding and offers encoding
presets and clip editing. For more information, see “Using the Video Import wizard” in Using
Flash.
Small font size rendering Small font sizes are now rendered more crisply. For more
information, see “Creating text” in Using Flash.
Publishing
New publishing features make it easy to detect Flash Player versions, improve accessibility, and
simplify localization.
Flash Player detection You can now publish SWF files with associated files that detect if a user
has a specified Flash Player version. You can configure your published files to direct users to
alternate files if they don’t have the specified Flash Player. For more information, see “Configuring
publish settings for Flash Player detection” in Using Flash.

8 Chapter 1: Getting Started
Publish profiles You can create profiles to save your publish settings, then export the profiles
and use them across projects to publish consistently under different conditions. For more
information, see “Creating a publish profile” in Using Flash.
Accessibility and components New accessibility features and a new generation of components
offer tab ordering, tab focus management, and improved support for third-party screen readers
and closed-caption programs.
Globalization and Unicode Enhanced globalization and Unicode support allows multilanguage
authoring using any character set. For more information, see “Creating Multilanguage Text” in
Using Flash.
Strings panel The new Strings panel makes it easier to publish Flash content in multiple
languages. With the click of a few buttons, Flash creates external XML files for each specified
language. For more information, see “Creating Multilanguage Text” in Using Flash. You may need
to update your Help system to see this information.
Security Flash Player 7 enforces a stricter security model than previous versions of Flash Player.
Exact domain matching requires that the domain of the data to be accessed match the data
provider’s domain exactly in order for the domains to communicate. HTTPS/HTTP restriction
specifies that a SWF file using nonsecure (non-HTTPS) protocols cannot access content loaded
using a secure (HTTPS) protocol, even when both are in exactly the same domain. For more
information see “Flash Player security features” in Using ActionScript in Flash.
Other improvements
Flash Player performance has been greatly improved, and ActionScript has been enhanced to
comply with ECMA script language specifications. Also, Flash now tracks interactions so that
they can be converted to reusable commands.
Flash Player runtime performance Player runtime performance has been improved by a factor
of two to five times for video, scripting, and general display rendering.
ActionScript 2.0 ActionScript 2.0 is an object-oriented language that follows the ECMA script
language specification and supports inheritance, strong typing, and the event model. For more
information, see “ECMA-262 compliance” in Using ActionScript in Flash. You may need to
update your Help system to see this information.
History panel The History panel tracks your actions so that they can be converted to reusable
commands. For more information, see “Using the History panel” in Using Flash.
New features available in Flash MX Professional 2004 only
Flash MX Professional 2004 offers all the features available in Flash MX 2004, plus a variety of
new features to enhance application development and design. Features include the screen-based
visual development environment, and tools for managing data interactively and for fostering
team productivity.

Guide to instructional media 9
Screen-based visual development environment
A visual programming environment Flash MX Professional 2004 introduces a forms-based
visual programming environment, which is ideal for developing applications. For more
information, see “Slide screens and form screens (Flash Professional only)”in Using Flash.
Slides-based authoring Slide screens provide functionality designed for sequential
presentations. For more information, see “Slide screens and form screens (Flash Professional
only)” in Using Flash.
A new generation of components
Advanced components support New components now support focus management to control
tab navigation. Although the components have a new sophisticated design, you can easily reskin
them to modify their appearance. For more information, see “Benefits of using components” in
Using Components.
Data interactivity
Data binding Data binding allows you to connect any component to various data sources to
manipulate, display, and update data through components or ActionScript. For more
information, see Chapter 14, “Data Integration (Flash Professional Only)” in Using Flash.
Prebuilt data connectors for Web Services and XML New components allow you to connect
to web services and XML data sources easily. For more information, see Chapter 14, “Data
Integration (Flash Professional Only),” in Using Flash.
Performance improvements Performance improvements on large record sets allow your
application to work efficiently with large amounts of data.
Team productivity
Project management The Project panel enables centralized project file management, version
control, and workflow optimization for teams of Flash users working together. For more
information, see Chapter 2, “Working with Projects (Flash Professional Only),” in Using Flash.
Source code control Flash Professional provides source code control integration with plug-ins
to industry-leading source control systems such as Microsoft Visual Source Safe. For more
information, see Chapter 2, “Using version control with projects (Flash Professional only),” in
Using Flash.
Guide to instructional media
Flash contains a variety of media to help you learn the program quickly and become proficient in
creating your own Flash applications.

10 Chapter 1: Getting Started
About the electronic manuals and lessons
The following electronic manuals are available through the Help panel (Help > Help):
•Getting Started with Flash (or Getting Started Help) provides a hands-on introduction to Flash.
•Using Flash (or Using Flash Help) contains complete information on working in the Flash
authoring tool, including all commands, features, and user interface elements.
•Using Components contains information on adding and configuring components in a Flash
document, as well as information on creating components.
•Using ActionScript in Flash (or Using ActionScript Help)provides a conceptual introduction to
the ActionScript language
•Flash ActionScript Language Reference (or Flash ActionScript Language Reference Help)
documents all actions, methods, and properties in the ActionScript API.
If you are a new user, you’ll find the following information useful:
•Getting Started with Flash (or Getting Started Help) provides basic information about the Flash
workspace and guides you in creating a simple document.
•A series of lessons on the How Do I tab offer an introduction to using Flash. Refer to the
Quick Start, Basic Flash, and Basic ActionScript lessons (Help > How Do I).
Using the Help panel
The updatable Help panel provides access to information on how to use Flash. For more
information about the Help panel, see the following sections.
Accessing help
The tabs in the Help panel—Help and How Do I—contain the full set of user assistance
information provided with the Flash application.
•You can select the Help tab to display general help information.
•You can select the How Do I tab to display a list of 10–20 minute lessons that guide you
through many of the features in Flash.
To access help and the table of contents:
1. Select Help > Help to open the Help panel, or press F1.
2. If the table of contents is not visible, click the Table of Contents button to display the Table
of Contents pane.
A list of help books is displayed. The Help tab is selected by default.
3. Double-click a book to open it and display its topics.
4. Click a topic to select it.
To close the table of contents, click the X above the Table of Contents pane.
The Help panel contains context-sensitive Reference information which can be accessed from the
Actions panel.