MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-GETTING STARTED WITH FLASH User manual

Getting Started with Flash
000_Getting_Started.book Page 1 Friday, September 2, 2005 12:22 PM

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Macromedia, Inc. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the owner or authorized user of a valid copy of the software with which
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Part Number ZPF80M100A
Acknowledgments
Project Management: Sheila McGinn
Writing: Jay Armstrong
Managing Editor: Rosana Francescato
Lead Editor: Lisa Stanziano
Editing: Geta Carlson, Evelyn Eldridge, Mark Nigara
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
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3
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
What is Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
What you can do with Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Making a simple Flash document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
About Flash Player. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
What’s new in Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Installing Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Chapter 1: Learning Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Where to start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Get the most from the Flash documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Accessing the Flash documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Accessing additional online Flash resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Choosing the right help books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Using the Flash help system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Opening the Help panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Searching the help system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Using context-sensitive help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Printing the Flash documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Purchasing printed documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Discussing the Flash documentation with LiveDocs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Controlling the appearance of the Help panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
Getting updates to Flash Help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Chapter 2: Flash Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
About Flash files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Getting to know the workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
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4Contents
Chapter 3: Tutorial: Building Your First Flash Application . . . . .95
Review your task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Examine the completed application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Create a working folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Create a new document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Create symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Edit a symbol Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Add actions to frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Add labels to frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Add motion tweens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110
Edit the main Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112
Create the border. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113
Add a symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119
Add a text box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Add the movie clip to the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Add a button component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Add ActionScript code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Publish your document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131
Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Chapter 4: Tutorial: Building a Video Player
(Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Review your task . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Examine the completed application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Create a working folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Encode a video file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Create a new Flash document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Add a media component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Publish your document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
The next steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
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5
Introduction
Welcome to Macromedia Flash Basic 8 and Macromedia Flash
Professional 8. 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 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:
What is Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
What you can do with Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Making a simple Flash document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
About Flash Player. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
What’s new in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Installing Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
What is Flash
Flash is an authoring tool that designers and developers use to create
presentations, applications, and other content that enables user interaction.
Flash projects can include simple animations, video content, complex
presentations, applications, and everything in between. In general,
individual pieces of content made with Flash are called applications, even
though they might only be a basic animation. You can make media-rich
Flash applications by including pictures, sound, video, and special effects.
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6Introduction
Flash is extremely well suited to creating content for delivery over the
Internet because its files are very small. Flash achieves this through its
extensive use of vector graphics. Vector graphics require significantly less
memory and storage space than bitmap graphics because they are
represented by mathematical formulas instead of large data sets. Bitmap
graphics are larger because each individual pixel in the image requires a
separate piece of data to represent it.
To build an application in Flash, you create graphics with the Flash
drawing tools and import additional media elements into your Flash
document. Next, you define how and when you want to use each of those
elements to create the application you have in mind.
When you author content in Flash, you work in a Flash document file.
Flash documents have the file extension .fla (FLA). A Flash document has
four main parts:
The Stage is where your graphics, videos, buttons, and so on appear
during playback. The Stage is described further in “Flash Basics”
on page 49.
The Timeline is where you tell Flash when you want the graphics and other
elements of your project to appear. You also use the Timeline to specify the
layering order of graphics on the Stage. Graphics in higher layers appear on
top of graphics in lower layers.
The Library panel is where Flash displays a list of the media elements in
your Flash document.
ActionScript code allows you to add interactivity to the media elements in
your document. For example, you can add code that causes a button to
display a new image when the user clicks it. You can also use ActionScript
to add logic to your applications. Logic enables your application to behave
in different ways depending on the user’s actions or other conditions. Flash
includes two versions of ActionScript, each suited to an author’s specific
needs. For more information about writing ActionScript, see Learning
ActionScript 2.0 in Flash in the Help panel.
Flash includes many features that make it powerful but easy to use, such as
prebuilt drag-and-drop user interface components, built-in behaviors that
let you easily add ActionScript to your document, and special effects that
you can add to media objects.
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What you can do with Flash 7
When you have finished authoring your Flash document, you publish it
using the File > Publish command. This creates a compressed version of
your file with the extension .swf (SWF). You can then use Flash Player to
play the SWF file in a web browser or as a stand-alone application. For an
introduction to Flash Player, see “About Flash Player” on page 17.
What you can do with Flash
With the wide array of features in Flash, you can create many types of
applications. The following are some examples of the kinds of applications
Flash can generate:
Animations These include banner ads, online greeting cards, cartoons,
and so on. Many other types of Flash applications include animation
elements as well.
Games Many games are built with Flash. Games usually combine the
animation capabilities of Flash with the logic capabilities of ActionScript.
User interfaces Many website designers use Flash to design user
interfaces. The interfaces include simple navigation bars as well as much
more complex interfaces. You can find an example of a navigation bar
created with Flash across the top of the www.macromedia.com home page.
Flexible messaging areas These are areas in web pages that designers
use for displaying information that may change over time. A flexible
messaging area (FMA) on a restaurant website might display information
about each day’s menu specials. You can find an example of an FMA on the
www.macromedia.com home page. The tutorial in “Tutorial: Building
Your First Flash Application” on page 95 guides you through the process of
building an FMA.
Rich Internet applications These include a wide spectrum of
applications that provide a rich user interface for displaying and
manipulating remotely stored data over the Internet. A rich Internet
application could be a calendar application, a price-finding application, a
shopping catalog, an education and testing application, or any other
application that presents remote data with a graphically rich interface.
You can find many examples of real projects created by Flash users on the
Macromedia website at www.macromedia.com/cfusion/showcase/.
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8Introduction
To build a Flash application, you typically perform the following
basic steps:
1. Decide which basic tasks the application will perform.
2. Create and import media elements, such as images, video, sound, text,
and so on.
3. Arrange the media elements on the Stage and in the Timeline to define
when and how they appear in your application.
4. Apply special effects to media elements as you see fit.
5. Write ActionScript code to control how the media elements behave,
including how the elements respond to user interactions.
6. Test your application to determine if it is working as planned and find
any bugs in its construction. Test your application throughout the
creation process.
7. Publish your FLA file as a SWF file that can be displayed in a web page
and played back with Flash Player.
Depending on your project and your working style, you may use these
steps in a different order. As you become familiar with Flash and its
workflows, you will discover a style of working that suits you best.
Making a simple Flash document
To illustrate the basic steps of creating any Flash document, this section
guides you through the process in a simple tutorial. This short tutorial is
just a sample of the Flash workflow. More tutorials are available in
“Tutorial: Building Your First Flash Application” and in Flash Tutorials.
The first step is to create a new document in Flash.
To create a new Flash document:
1. Select File > New.
2. In the New Document dialog box, Flash Document is selected
by default.
Click OK.
In the Property inspector, the Size button displays the current Stage size
setting as 550 x 400 pixels.
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Making a simple Flash document 9
3. The Background color swatch is set to white. You can change the color
of the Stage by clicking the swatch and selecting a different color.
The Property inspector, showing the Stage size and background color
Drawing a circle
After you’ve created your document, you are ready to add some artwork for
the document.
To draw a circle on the Stage:
1. Select the Oval tool from the Tools panel.
The Oval tool in the Tools panel
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10 Introduction
2. Select the No Color option from the Stroke Color Picker.
Selecting the No Color option in the Stroke Color Picker
3. Select a color of your choice from the Fill Color Picker.
Make sure the fill color contrasts well with the Stage color.
4. Draw a circle on the Stage by selecting the Oval tool and Shift-dragging
on the Stage.
Holding the Shift key constrains the Oval tool to a circle.
The circle shape drawn on the Stage
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Making a simple Flash document 11
Creating a symbol
You can turn your new artwork into a reusable asset by converting it to a
Flash symbol. A symbol is a media asset that can be reused anywhere in
your Flash document without the need to re-create it.
To create a symbol:
1. Click the Selection tool in the Tools panel.
The Tools panel with the Selection tool selected
2. Click the circle on the Stage to select it.
3. With the circle still selected, select Modify > Convert to Symbol.
4. In the Convert to Symbol dialog box, type my_circle into the Name
text box.
The default behavior is now Movie Clip.
5. Click OK.
A square bounding box appears around the circle. You have now
created a reusable asset, called a symbol, in your document.
6. The new symbol appears in the Library panel.
If the Library panel is not open, select Window > Library.
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12 Introduction
Animating the circle
Now that you have some artwork in your document, you can make it more
interesting by animating it to move across the Stage.
To create an animation with the circle:
1. Drag the circle to just left of the Stage area.
The circle shape moved to the left of the Stage area
2. Click Frame 20 of Layer 1 in the Timeline.
Selecting Frame 20 of Layer 1 in the Timeline
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Making a simple Flash document 13
3. Select Insert > Timeline > Frame.
Flash adds frames to Frame 20, which remains selected.
Frames inserted in the Timeline
4. With Frame 20 still selected, select Insert > Timeline > Keyframe.
A keyframe is added in Frame 20. A keyframe is a frame where some
property of an object is explicitly changed. In this new keyframe, you
will change the circle’s location.
Inserting a keyframe in Frame 20
5. With Frame 20 still selected in the Timeline, drag the circle to just right
of the Stage area.
6. Select Frame 1 of Layer 1 in the Timeline.
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14 Introduction
7. In the Property inspector (its default location is at the bottom of
the Flash application window), select Motion from the Tween
pop-up menu.
Selecting a motion tween in the Property inspector
An arrow appears in the Timeline in Layer 1 between Frame 1 and
Frame 20.
The Timeline with an arrow indicating a motion tween
This step creates a tweened animation of the circle moving from its
position in the first keyframe in Frame 1 to its new position in the
second keyframe in Frame 20. For more information on tweening, see
Chapter 10, “Creating Motion,” in Using Flash.
8. In the Timeline, drag the red playhead back and forth from frame 1 to
frame 20 to preview the animation.
9. Select File > Save.
10. Choose a location for the file on your hard disk and name the file
SimpleFlash.fla.
11. Select Control > Test Movie to test the FLA file.
12. Close the Test Movie window.
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Making a simple Flash document 15
Publishing the file
When you finish your Flash document, you are ready to publish it so it can
be viewed in a browser. When you publish a FLA file, Flash compresses it
into the SWF file format. This is the format that you place in a web page.
The Publish command can automatically generate an HTML file with the
correct tags in it for you.
To publish the Flash file and view it in a browser:
1. Select File > Publish Settings.
2. In the Publish Settings dialog box, select the Formats tab and verify that
only the Flash and HTML options are selected.
This action causes Flash to publish only the Flash SWF file and an
HTML file. The HTML file is used to display the SWF file in a
web browser.
The Flash and HTML options on the Formats tab
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16 Introduction
3. In the Publish Settings dialog box, select the HTML tab and verify that
Flash Only is selected in the Template pop-up menu.
This template creates a simple HTML file that contains only your
SWF file when displayed in a browser window.
Choosing Flash Only from the Template menu
4. Click OK.
5. Select File > Publish and open your web browser.
6. Select File > Open in the web browser.
7. Navigate to the folder where you saved your FLA file.
The SimpleFlash.swf and SimpleFlash.html files are there. Flash creates
these files when you click Publish.
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What’s new in Flash 17
8. Select the file named SimpleFlash.html.
9. Click Open.
Your Flash document is displayed in the browser window.
Congratulations! You have now completed your first Flash document.
About Flash Player
Flash Player 8, which runs the applications that you create, is installed by
default when you install Flash. Flash Player ensures that all Flash SWF files
are viewable and available consistently across the broadest range of
platforms, browsers, and devices, including mobile phones.
Flash Player is distributed with products from every major software
partner, including Microsoft, Apple, Netscape, AOL, and Opera, which
brings rich content and applications 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
Many new features in Flash are helpful to beginners. This section
summarizes those new features. For a comprehensive list of new features for
both beginning and advanced Flash users, see “What’s new in Flash” in
Using Flash.
New Features in Flash Basic 8 and Flash
Professional 8
The following are new features for beginners in Flash Basic 8 and Flash
Professional 8.
Gradient enhancements New controls allow you to apply complex
gradients to objects on the Stage. You can add up to 16 colors to a gradient,
precisely control the location of the gradient focal point, and apply other
parameters to the gradient. Macromedia also simplified the workflow for
applying gradients. For more information, see “Transforming gradient and
bitmap fills” in Using Flash.
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18 Introduction
Object Drawing model Previously in Flash, all shapes in the same layer
on the Stage could affect the outlines of other overlapping shapes. You can
now create shapes directly on the Stage that do not interfere with other
shapes on the Stage. When you create a shape with the new Object
Drawing model, the shape does not cause changes to other shapes that exist
underneath the new shape. For more information, see “About Flash
drawing models” in Using Flash.
FlashType Text objects on the Stage now have a more consistent
appearance in the Flash authoring tool and in Flash Player. For more
information, see Chapter 6, “Working with Text” in Using Flash.
Script Assist mode A new assisted mode in the Actions panel allows you
to create scripts without detailed knowledge of ActionScript. For more
information, see Chapter 13, “Writing ActionScript with Script Assist” in
Using Flash.
Expanded Stage Work Area You can use the area around the Stage to
store graphics and other objects without having them appear on the Stage
when you play the SWF file. Macromedia expanded this area, called the
work area, to allow you to store more items there. Flash users often use the
work area to store graphics they plan to animate on the Stage later, or to
store objects that do not have a graphical representation during playback,
such as data components.
Macintosh document tabs You can now open multiple Flash files in the
same Flash application window and choose among them by using the
document tabs at the top of the window.
Improved Preferences dialog box Macromedia streamlined the design
of the Preferences dialog box and reorganized it for improved clarity and
ease of use. For more information, see “Setting preferences in Flash”
on page 78.
Single Library panel You can now use a single Library panel to view the
library items of multiple Flash files simultaneously. For more information,
see “Managing media assets with the library” in Using Flash.
Improved publishing interface The Publish Settings dialog box has been
streamlined for easier control over your published SWF files. For more
information, see Chapter 17, “Publishing” in Using Flash.
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What’s new in Flash 19
Object-level Undo mode You can now choose to keep track of the
changes you make in Flash on a per-object basis. When you use this mode,
each object on the Stage and in the library has its own undo list. This
allows you to undo the changes you make to an object without having to
undo changes to any other object. For more information, see “Using the
Undo, Redo, and Repeat menu commands” in Using Flash.
New features in Flash Professional 8 only
The following are new features for beginners available in Flash
Professional 8 only:
Custom easing controls A tween is the application of a change to a
graphic object over a period of time. For example, you could tween the
location of a picture of a car from one side of the Stage to the other to
make the car move from side to side. To ease a tween is to control the rate
at which the change is applied to the object. New easing controls in Flash
allow you to precisely control how tweens that you apply in the timeline
affect the appearance of tweened objects on the Stage. With the new
controls, you can make an object move back and forth on the Stage within
a single tween or create other complex tween effects. For more
information, see “Applying custom ease in/ease out to motion tweens
(Flash Professional only)” in Using Flash.
Graphics effects filters You can apply graphics filters to objects on the
Stage. These are called filters because they pass the image data of the object
through an algorithm that filters the data in a specific way. With these
filters, you can make objects glow, add drop shadows, and apply many
other effects and combinations of effects. For more information, see
“About filters (Flash Professional only)” in Using Flash.
Blend modes You can achieve a variety of compositing effects by using
blend modes to change the way the image of one object on the Stage is
combined with the images of any objects beneath it. For more information,
see “About blend modes (Flash Professional only)” in Using Flash.
Bitmap smoothing Bitmap images now look much better on the Stage
when greatly enlarged or reduced. The appearance of these bitmaps in the
Flash authoring tool and in Flash Player is now consistent. For more
information about bitmap settings, see “Setting bitmap properties” in
Using Flash.
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20 Introduction
Improved text anti-aliasing You can now apply new anti-aliasing
settings that make normal and small-sized text much clearer and easier to
read onscreen. For more information, see “Setting anti-aliasing options for
text” in Using Flash.
New video encoder A new video encoder application is included with
Flash Professional 8. It is a separate application that provides an easy way to
convert video files into the Flash Video (FLV) format. The application also
allows you to perform batch processing of video files. For more
information, see “Encoding video” in Using Flash.
Video alpha channel support You can now use an alpha channel with
video objects, allowing you to create transparency effects. For more
information about using video in Flash, see Chapter 11, “Working with
Video” in Using Flash.
Installing Flash
The following sections describe the process of installing Flash.
System requirements
Complete product system requirements and recommendations are available
on the Flash system requirements web page at www.macromedia.com/go/
sysreqs.
Installing and activating Flash
Installing Flash is an automated process. After installation, you can choose
to run the 30-day trial mode, or you can choose to activate either Flash
Basic 8 or Flash Professional 8. You must activate both editions of Flash
over the Internet or phone before use, and you need your serial number to
activate either edition of Flash unless you want to select the trial mode.
Windows 98 SE users must have Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1 or later in
order to activate Flash over the Internet.
NOTE
Installing Macromedia Flash Basic 8 and Flash Professional 8 does not
overwrite earlier Flash versions that you might have installed.
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