Images Macromedia Flash 8 - PART I

Macromedia Flash 8
Adobe Flash Professional is used to create content for the Adobe Engagement Platform (such as web applications, games and movies, and content for mobile phones and other embedded devices). Macromedia Flash is an industry leading tool that
supplies its users with animations, presentations, and mind blowing websites, while doing this at a constant low bandwidth. This may get you to asking some questions.Flash is commonly used to create
animation, advertisements, various web page components, to integrate video into web pages, and more recently, to develop rich Internet applications. Macromedia Flash player numbers indicate that it is used by more then 386 million people. This number translates to mean that if you have Flash in your website, over 97.4% of your online audience will be able to see it using the Macromedia Flash player.
Introduction to Macromedia Flash Starting Flash To start Flash follow the following steps closely:- 1. Click on the start button on the Taskbar i.e. at the bottom of your computer. >> Then go to Programs >> Then click on Macromedia >> Then finally click on Macromedia Flash 8. For Animated Presentation Click here Introduction to Macromedia Flash Introduction Welcome to Macromedia Flash Basic 8 and Macromedia Flash Professional 8.Until recently, graphics on the Web were limited to GIFs and JPEGs. Now there is Macromedia Flash. Flashprovides 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 multipleplatforms and devices. It allows the creation of dazzling graphics and animations. It's also a very fast-loading format, which means users don't need to wait forever while animations download. Bitmapped images can be used, but Flash animations became very popular and widely used on the Web because they support vector graphics. Vector images are very space efficient compared to a sequence of bitmapped frames, and they scale up with accurate detail no matter how large the window is resized by the user. Flash files can also contain sound and video clips, providing a full multimedia container for animation and movie sequences. In fact, Flash became extremely popular as a video format because it lets authors easily add interactive controls. Flash is a multimediagraphics program especially for use on the Web. It enables you to create interactive "movies" on the Web. Flash uses vector graphics, which means that the graphics can be scaled to any size without losing clarity/quality With flash you can entertain your users like never before. Your web site can transform from a bland text based web site into a graphical playground. Many companies that are based primarily on image and appearance have flash web sites to help show their company in the best light. Now what exactly is Flash? Macromedia Flash is an industry leading tool that supplies its users with animations, presentations, and mind blowing websites, while doing this at a constant low bandwidth. This may get you to asking some questions. Who says it is the industry leader? Macromedia Flash player numbers indicate that it is used by more then 386 million people. This number translates to mean that if you have Flash in your website, over 97.4% of your online audience will be able to see it using the Macromedia Flash player. Another reason why it is an industry leader is because it is included in all the most popular browsers, so anyone with a new version of Netscape or Internet Explorer is guaranteed to be able to viewFlash movies on the Web. Why do users love it so much? Web users began to love how the net could start to jump out at them. Flash movies are very engaging because they download quickly and can be extremely interactive. Flash builds curiosity and gives the user more of an urge to view your site. Couple this with an educational value and Flash can be very advantageous to users and instructors. Flash Web Design is a very powerful & flexible medium to create impact on the viewers mind. Adding flash features to your website will definitely make it more attractive and unique. Style and quality are our professional web design credo that ensures ongoing success and progress of your business. Flash design is one of the main areas of our expertise. Macromedia Flash represents a powerful tool for making professional websites. This book views Flash as a rich integration of the traditional Flash tools, which make graphic animation and web page development both effective and efficient, and the powerful new set of components and ActionScript 2.0, which allow for optimal development and object oriented programming(OOP). Like any other powerful application tool, Flash consists of many elements so that readers can get started relatively quickly creating professional sites for their clients. Some readers will come from a background rich in graphics and design, and others strong in development and programming. Still others have skills in both design and development. Because of the different backgrounds of professional creators of web-based rather than dissecting it into an unnatural dichotomy of “design” and “development”. Designers and developers can work as a team to create the best possible Web sites with Flash, each providing their different expertise. The extent to which designers and developers understand each others tools and requirements in the context of the overall site will have a strong effect on the resulting flash application: • Designers need to know what can be done with ActionScript 2.0, and flash has some new tools in the behaviors panel and some components that simplify adding ActionScript 2.0-based functionality. This book shows how to get started easily using ActionScript 2.0 as well as using its most advanced features. The reader can choose the level of scripting most suitable for his or her needs. • Developers need to understand the important design tools and the roles that those tools play in creating a site using Flash. This doesn’t mean that a programmer has to learn to be a designer, but rather he or she needs to be cognizant of the fact that most flashprogramming occurs in the context of graphics-based designs. To get the most out of Flash Pro, developers have to work closely with designers and understand something about design needs. Such an understanding won’t undermine efficient and effective coding; indeed, some of the code use, such as communicating with a back end and database, may have very little to do with understanding design. However, information put into and retrieved from a database, must be entered through an input text field and retrieved through a dynamic text field that a designer has shaped for optimizing the user interface. Flash’s initial popularity stemmed from being a very efficient tool for creating low-bandwidth animations for the Web. At the core of Flash is the use of vector graphics and symbols.Vector graphics have less “bulk” because they use vector points and algorithms for drawing lines between the vector points. Such graphics take up less computer memory than bitmapped graphics, which map all the bits in a graphic. Flash uses symbols to store information about different shapes that can be used as movieclips, buttons, and graphic images. A symbol represents an object that can be replicated in a Flash movie without you having to send over the internet the entire graphic that makes up the symbol. Therefore, you can use a single button symbol to create several identical buttons, but because only the button symbol is sent across the internet, the bandwidth costs are a fraction of what the same number of buttons would be if they were sent as individual graphic objects. Flash also introduced the Timeline, frames and layers for creating animated movies. The Timeline, with its moving play head, is a metaphor borrowed from animated films where the cells (the individual movie frames created) are hand-drawn animations. This greatly simplified the making of computer-based animations for the Web. The automatic in-betweening work in animation is automatically handled through the “tweening” process in Flash. Therefore, not only is creating animations analogous to the traditional methods favored by animators, but it is far more effective and efficient as well. With the advent of the newer versions of Flash, several user interface (UI) components were added, along with a far more robust version of ActionScript. Designers were able to add these components to their sites easily as well as add their own design colors. Developers could use the new ActionScript to create class-like functions using the prototype property Introduction to Macromedia Flash Getting to know Flash Macromedia 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. These lessons are designed to introduce you to Flash. As you complete the lessons, you will learn many of the basic tasks of creating Flash applications. You’ll see how, in a few minutes, you can create a compelling web experience that combines video, text, graphics, and media control behaviors. In the process, you’ll learn about the Flash authoring environment as you accomplish the following tasks: • Dock and undock panels • Change the background and Stage size • Change your view of the Stage • View your document library • Add graphics to the Stage • Add video • View object properties • Add video control behaviors • Use the Movie Explorer to view the document structure • Test the document Note: In Windows operating systems, you can open several documents at once and use document tabs, above the Stage, to navigate between them. Use tools to create Flash content:- The white rectangular Stage area is where you can arrange objects as you wish them to appear in your published file. The Tools panel, next to the Stage, offers a variety of controls that let you create text and vector art. To learn more about Tools panel tools, select Help > How Do I > Basic Flash > Draw in Flash and Help > How Do I > Basic Flash > Add Static, Input, and Dynamic Text. Now Click the Pencil tool in the Tools panel. Click the Stroke color box, in the Tools panel Colors area, and select any color except white. Click and drag around the Stage, without releasing the mouse, to draw a line. You’ve created Flash content. Your finished document will be much more impressive. Undo actions:- Flash can undo a series of changes to your document. You’ll undo the artwork that you just created. To see the undo feature in action, first open the History panel (Window > Other Panels > History). The Pencil tool appears in the panel, because using the tool was your last action. Do one of the following: ¦ Select Edit > Undo Pencil Tool. ¦ Press Ctrl + Z Your scribbles disappear from the Stage. The History panel now shows a dimmed Pencil tool, which indicates the undo action was executed. Flash, by default, is set to undo 100 of your changes, in reverse order of execution. You can change the default setting in Preferences (Ctrl + U). To close the History panel, click the options menu in the upper right corner of the panel and select Close Panel. Viewing the Timeline:- Now just above the Stage, you will see the Timeline and layers. You can create and name layers, then add content to frames on layers to organize how your Flash content plays as the playhead moves across the frames. You can also resize the layers and timeline panels. Just move the mouse pointer over the area that separates the Stage from the Timeline. When the resizing handle appears, drag up or down slightly to resize the Timeline as necessary. The playhead (the red indicator line) is on Frame 1 in the Timeline (by default). The keyframes are designated by small circles in the frames, which are filled, indicating there’s content in those frames. You can add a keyframe to a document when you want the Flash content to change in some way in that frame. Change background and Stage size:- The Stage provides a preview of how your Flash content will appear in your published file. You’ll change the size of the Stage, to accommodate artwork designed for a larger Stage, and you’ll change the background color of the Stage. In the Tools panel, click the Selection tool. On the Stage, click anywhere in the gray work area that surrounds the Stage, or on the background area of the Stage, so that no objects are selected. The Property inspector, below the Stage, displays properties for the document when no objects are selected. 3. To change the Stage background color, click the Background color box and select a light shade of gray, such as gray with the hexadecimal value of #CCCCCC. To change the Stage size, click the Size button in the Property inspector. In the Document Properties dialog box, enter 750 for the Stage width, and then click OK. The Stage resizes to 750 pixels wide. Change your view of the Stage:- You can change your view of the Stage without affecting the actual Stage size of your document. In the Stage View text box, above the right side of the Stage, type 500%. Then press Enter. Your view of the Stage enlarges to 500%. In the Stage View pop-down menu, which you access by clicking the control to the right of the text box, select 100% to view the Stage in dimensions that correspond to the size of the published Flash content or you can simply press Ctrl + 2 for !00% view. View the Library panel:- The Library panel contains the symbols and imported objects in your document. .If the Library panel isn’t open, choose Window > Library. Drag the Library panel to enlarge it, if necessary, to view the objects within the library. If the Artwork folder is not expanded, double-click it to view the objects in the folder. Click an object to view the image in the preview area at the top of the Library panel. Expand the other folders in the Library panel to view the assets included in the document such as buttons and movie clips. When you finish viewing the assets, close the Library panel. Note: Flash also contains a common library for buttons, Classes and Learning interactions that you can use in your document. To view this library, select Window > Other Panels > Common Libraries and select the library you want. View object properties:- When you add an object to the Stage, you can select it, then view and change its properties in the Property inspector. The type of object selected determines which properties appear. For example, if you select a text object, the Property inspector displays settings such as font, type size, and paragraph formatting, which you can either view or change. If no object is selected, the Property inspector displays properties for the entire document. Use the Movie Explorer to view the document structure:- The Movie Explorer helps you arrange, locate, and edit media. With its hierarchical tree structure, the Movie Explorer provides information about the organization and flow of a document. Select Window > Other Panels > Movie Explorer. If necessary, enlarge the Movie Explorer to view the tree structure within the pane. The Movie Explorer filtering buttons display or hide information. Click the pop-up menu in the title bar of the Movie Explorer, and select Show Movie Elements and Show Symbol Definitions, if they’re not already selected. Configure the filtering buttons, along the top of the Movie Explorer, so the only ones selected are Show Buttons, Movie Clips, and Graphics; Show Action Scripts; and Show Video, Sounds, and Bitmaps. If you move your mouse pointer over a button, a tool tip displays the name of the button. Test the document:- As you author a document, you should save and test it frequently to ensure the Flash content plays as expected. Select Control > Test Movie or Ctrl + Enter to test your movie and as soon as you test the movie in the same folder a SWF file of the same name as the main file will appear. Your Flash content will be played in this SWF file window. While FLA is the extension for documents in the authoring environment, SWF is the extension for tested, exported, and published Flash content. When you finish viewing the SWF content, close the SWF file window to return to the authoring environment. Introduction to Macromedia Flash What you can do with Flash Using the features and power of Flash 8, you can create animated logos, Web site navigation controls, animations, entire Flash Web sites, or Web applications. Flash movies on your web site can include graphics, text, animation, and entire applications. They can also provide interactivity so your users enjoy their experiences and return later. Because Flash files mainly contain vector graphics, they are easily downloaded and scale nicely to the user's screen size. However, these files also can contain imported video, bitmap graphics, and sounds. It gives you the capability of creating interactive games 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. 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. 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. 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. Flash Files:- 1. FLA Files:- All editable materials in flash are saved in FLA files. These files contain objects and ActionScript that can be changed by adding, modifying, or deleting materials. After you’ve saved a document in a FLA file, you can open it again and make any changes you want. In developing a large and complex movie, you might want to consider saving different progressive versions of your movie so that if some portion of a later version doesn’t perform correctly, you can open an earlier version where all the parts are correctly working. For instance, you might want to save Mov1.fla, Mov2.fla, and so forth as you develop a movie. The FLA file format is the "master" document format for Flash projects. When you create a new Flash file in the Macromedia Flash authoring program, you create an FLA file. This contains all the elements which make up the finished product, including graphics, animation instructions, ActionScript code, comments, etc. FLA files can only be opened in Flash (not the Flash Player). The FLA file is roughly equivalent to the PSD files of Adobe Photoshop or PRPROJ file in Adobe Premier. 2. SWF Files:- A SWF file is a compiled Flash Document that can be run directly from a player or on the Web from a browser with a Flash plug-in. a SWF file is created as soon as you have named an FLA file and saved it and then tested the movie. SWF means Shockwave Flash Format. SWF is a Flash-based vector format used to export animations. It is most suitable for animations with solid-color areas and sharp-edged objects. For example, if you save Mov1.fla and then test it, it automatically creates a file named Mov1.swf. When you publish a Flash document, typically you also generate a SWF file. The default publish settings include generating a SWF file. SWF files are the compressed versions of FLA files. These files are the ones you display in a web page. 3. HTML Files:- HTML means Hyper Text Markup Language file that may be created when you publish a movie is an HTML file. Like the SWF file, the default publish settings generates an HTML file with the same name as the saved name of the FLA file. So, if you have a document named Mov1.fla, when you publish the movie, it generates a file named Mov1.php. The HTML contains code to embed the SWF file generated when the HTML file is created. An HTML file is generated only if a SWF file is selected to be published at the same time. 4. AS Files:- You can create an AS file directly in Flash Pro by selecting ActionScript (AS) file when creating a new document. In previous versions of Flash, to create an AS file you had to either export a script from the Actions panel or create it independent of Flash using a text editor such as Microsoft’s Notepad. An AS file is simply an external ActionScript 2.0 file saved in text format. However, with Flash it automatically loads classes. An AS file can also be loaded using the #include statement in the following format: #include “filename.as” You can use these files if you prefer to keep some or all of your ActionScript code outside of your FLA files. These can be helpful for code organization and for projects that have multiple people working on different parts of the Flash content. The code loaded performs in the same manner as ActionScript generated in the Actions panel, but instead of being stored in the FLA file, it’s in an external text file. 5. FLV Files:- An important file type that can now be generated with Flash is the FLV file. The FLV file is a movie file that can be progressively downloaded, previously accessible only with Flash Communication Server. Now using Flash Pro, these files can be used in place of movie files that have to be entirely loaded into a Flash document or played on an external player such as QuickTime or RealPlayer. 6. Other Files:- Flash Pro generates other types of files and can work with other files as well. You can generate ActionScript Communication (ASC) files in much the same way as AS files, simply by selecting the ActionScript Communication Files option when creating a new file. The ASC files are used to generate server-side communication ActionScript for Flash Communication Server projects. Likewise, you can use the Flash JavaScript File option to create JSFL files. In the publish settings, you can create the following files in addition to SWF and HTML files: • GIF • JPEG • PNG • Windows Projector ( .exe) • Macintosh Projector ( .hqx) • QuickTime ( .mov) Introduction to Macromedia Flash What’s new in Flash We at eBIZ provide our ebizzers with the latest of software. With the introduction ofMacromedia Flash Basic 8 and Macromedia Flash Professional 8, life for a flash user has become very convenient and stress free. Until recently, graphics on the Web were limited toGIFs and JPEGs. But now with the introduction of flash life has become very easy. Whether you are 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. It allows the creation of dazzling graphics and animations. In the past, Macromedia Flash presented some limitations if you attempted to draw objects programmatically. Even simple lines required some clever manipulation of pre-drawn movie clips. For more complex objects, the limits were such that only the most adept ActionScript developers could even try-and even they experienced mixed results. Now, with Macromedia Flash 8, nearly all the capabilities of the built-in drawing tools are available in ActionScript. When you couple that with the power inherent in ActionScript itself, the results can be astounding. The new drawing methods give the ActionScript author the power to create interactive visual elements that would have been difficult (or even impossible) to do before. These scripts allow for the creation of lines and shapes via code at run-time rather than having to rely on pre-drawn graphics. Macromedia Flash is animation software that is most often used for Web sites. (It can also be used on CD-ROMs and even TV.) Flash is a full-featured program and can create almost any technique you can imagine. On the other hand, you may not want to use Flash all the time. Although Flash’s vector images are compact and files are compressed when published, Flash still introduces an overhead to your Web site. Make sure that you don’t make your viewers wait too long for your site to load. In general, a good guideline is that you should use Flash only when it doesn’t violate two basic principles of good Web site design: ¦ Fast loading ¦ Easy to use (usability) Flash Introduced many new things:- Graphic Tools In developing a site for the internet, Flash Pro provides graphic tools for creating graphics right on the stage. The tools have a basic set of tools for creating vector graphics right on the stage. The Tools panel has a basic set of tools for creating vector graphics. For those familiar with previous versions of Flash, you’ll see that very little has changed in the Tools panel. The same graphic tools available in Flash MX are still there. The look has changed slightly, but other than the new PolyStar tool, little has changed. Graphic File Importer In addition to creating your own graphics in Flash Pro, you can import both bitmapped and vector graphics into Flash. Graphics from programs such as Macromedia FreeHand, Macromedia Fireworks, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Paint, and many other formats can be easily imported and used in Flash Pro movies. New in Macromedia Flash is the ability to import PDF files. Video Store As a tool for creating animated movies for the internet, Flash is surpassed. However, it can also import and play digital video files that can be placed into layers where keyframes will be created automatically to accommodate the video. The new version of Flash can also stream external FLV files. Additionally, if AVI or MOV files are imported into Flash, they can be exported as FLV files. Streamed files are important because they’re streamed directly from the server; therefore, users don’t have to wait while the files are downloaded prior to viewing them. Likewise, because streamed files need not be part of the SWF file, the Flash file will load and play much faster. Flash also comes with three new components for placing streaming video into a Flash movie: 1. Media Controller 2. Media Display 3. Media Playback Sound Platform In addition to graphics, both static and animated, Flash handles sound files as well. Sound files, including WAV, AIEE and MP3 formats, can be compressed into MP3 format for a smaller-size SWF file to be sent over the internet. User Interface One of the most important features in Flash Pro is the inclusion of User Interface (UI) components. The area of computer human interface (CHI) or human computer interface(HCI) is not that cannot be ignored in creating professional sites for clients. Flash includes an expanded set of the UI components originally introduced in Flash MX. Back-End Portal Flash has longed served as a stable front end for communicating with a back end through a connector. Flash Player contains a security system for external data and files; therefore, Flash can be used as a secure front end. All connections to external data are subject to flash’s sandbox security. This type of security restricts a Flash document from data emanating from a domain other than the originating one. Internet Programming Tool When ActionScript was initially introduced in Flash, it stood as a support system geared primarily towards jumping from one frame to another within a Flash movie. However, as ActionScript developed, making huge leaps in Flash % and Flash MX, it took on a life of its own, having much the same functionality as JavaScript plus its original unique Flash functionality. Quick Overview of what’s new in Flash Pro • Accessibility support is offered in the components and the Flash authoring environment. Keyboard shortcuts allow for non-mouse interfaces. Components allow for improved third-party closed-caption and screen reader programs. • ActionScript 2.0 is a true object-oriented language in line with ECMA-262 Edition 4. • The Behaviors panel helps non-programmers add ActioScript2.0 to their documents. Functions include scripts that link to Web sites, control the playback of embedded videos, play movie clips, load sounds and graphics, and trigger data sources. • Components have been added for data, media, and user interface enhancement. • Data binding allows you to connect any component to a data source. Data updates and manipulation can be accomplished through ActionScript 2.0 or the components. • Document tabs make working with multiple documents and documents that use external files much easier. • File import enhancements allow for importing Adobe PDF and Adobe Illustrator 10 files and preserving vector representations of original source files. • Find and Replace has been a part of the ActionScript panel in previous versions of Flash, and it is now available for locating and replacing text strings, fonts, colors, symbols, sound files, video files, and imported bitmap files in a document. • Flash Player detection lets you determine the Player version the user has in his or her system. • Flash Player performance is enhanced. It now complies with the ECMA Script language specifications. Also, the Player has much improved runtime performance, video scripting and display rendering. • Form screens comprise a forms-based visual programming environment for optimizing development. • The Help system includes a new Help panel with context-sensitive reference and ActionScript reference, in addition to lessons in using Flash. • The History panel has been added to the panel set. It tracks user actions for possible conversion to reusable commands. • Multilanguage authoring using enhanced globalization and Unicode support with any character set assists with international authoring. • The Project panel allows for team design and development on a single project. File management, version control, and efficient workflow have been added to document development. • Publish profiles allow the user to save, reuse, and export documents. This new feature aids in cross-document consistency. • Security is stricter in the Flash Player, including exact domain matching. The Flash Player also distinguishes between HTTPS and HTTP, thus adding further security. • Screen-based visual development environment, slide screens, and form screens help create slide shows and form-based applications. • Small font sizes have improved rendering with improved appearance. • Source Code control integration with plug-ins to source control systems such as Microsoft Visual Source Safe help protect source code from decompiling. • Spell Check searches your text on the stage and in movie clips for spelling errors. This is a real lifesaver when you use a lot of text in Flash documents. • The start page has been enhanced to display far more options. • The strings panel eases the publication of content in multiple languages. • Templates have been added to Flash for making presentations, e-learning applications, advertisements, mobile device applications, and other templates handy for Flash documents. • Timeline effects allow user to apply effects to objects on the stage. Transitions fade in and out, spins, and blurs are all made simple using this new feature. • Video Import makes video encoding easier and offers encoding presets and clip editing. • Web Services include ready-to-use data connectors for Web services. Introduction to Macromedia Flash How to Install Flash:- 1. Double click the setup icon that you might have acquired either from net or from a CD. You will see a dialog box like the one below coming up. 2. Click on Next (Sometimes it automatically goes to the next dialog box, if it doesn’t click on next). Then a small windows installer dialog box will appear. 3. After a few second/minutes (depending on your computer configuration) you will get a dialog box that will start extracting files. 4. After done that you will get the license agreement dialog box. Read it thoroughly and then select on “I accept the terms in the license agreement”. 5. Then you will get a dialog box which will have a Check box for Installing Flash Player. If you want to install flash player check that box otherwise decheck it. 6. When you click on Next another dialog box will open. Here you can set on/off to a short-cut for your desktop or Quick Launch bar. 7. Click on Next to get the next dialog box opened. Here press Install button to install flash. 8. Now it will start copying new files 9. After some time you will get a Dialog box like the one under. Check the “Show the Read me file” to learn more about flash. And then press Finish. Flash will be installed in your Computer. For Animated Presentation Click here Introduction to Macromedia Flash Flash Application window A Flash screen can be customized in many ways. However the basic look is below: Getting started With Flash Getting started When you start Flash three columns of choices make the selection options clear. In the first column, the option for opening a recent or other item is now on the stage instead of only in the file menu. The second column not only provides familiar options from the file menu but also several other previously unavailable options: • Flash Document – Opens a new blank Flash movie • Flash Slide Presentation – Available only in Flash Pro, this option opens a two-column document ready for using slides. • Flash Form Application – Available only in Flash Pro, this option opens a two-column document set up for inserting forms. • ActionScript File – Available only in Flash Pro, this option opens an Integrated Script window for creating Dealing with External Data, and Object AS files. It’s similar to the Actions panel, but all scripts are saved in external files and not integrated into the FLA source. However, it does support syntax coloring, code hints, and other scripting aids found in the Actions panel. • ActionScript Communication File – Available only in Flash Pro, this option opens an integrated Script window that is used for creating server-side ActionScript to be saved in asc files with Flash Communication Server MX. • Flash JavaScript File – Available only in Flash Pro, this options opens the Flash JavaScript Editor and is used in conjunction with the Flash JavaScript API. You can create JSFL files that can be used with multiple scripts. • Flash Project – Available only in Flash Pro, this option creates a Flash Project file that can be used to coordinate multiple developers/designers and pull together the different files used in a single project. The final column provides a set of templates. These templates are FLA files that you can fill with unique content. For getting a true kick start in using Flash Pro’s power, working with templates is a good idea. The following templates are provided: • Advertising – Several different layouts with minimum content are provided as design stages. The layouts represent typical ones you’re likely to find in banner ads and other ads embedded in an HTML page or as part of a large Flash page. • Form Application – Found in Flash Pro only, these templates help in creating forms quickly. • Mobile Devices – These templates help you create Flash movies used in mobile phones and PDAs that can read the new Flsah Lite 1.0 player or the older Flash Player 5. Included in the template are Graphic representations of various mobile devices and their display screens to help you plan a movie that can be seen on different devices. • Photo Slideshows – This templates allows you to quickly put together a user-controlled or automatically timed slide show. • Presentations – Several layouts provide boilerplates for different style presentations. The materials provide PowerPoint-type presentations using Flash Pro. • Quiz, Remoting, Slide Presentations – Several different layouts with minimum content are provided as design stages. • More…(Video) – The video template uses both media components and forms to show how video can be integrated into different applications. Getting started With Flash Menus in Flash FILE-  The file menu contains options for creating, loading, importing, saving, and generally dealing with files of all sorts. With this menu, you can import files, compile and publish Flash files and more. Edit-  The edit menu contains a fairly standard set of editing commands found in most applications, such as Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste. However, the menu also contains certain editing options unique to Flash, such as cut and copy frames in the timeline submenu which will help you to cut and copy frames in a timeline. The find option including find and replace and find next. View-  The view menu displays different parts of the document. Many of the view features relates to understanding other aspects of using flash. For example, the Guides submenu requires that the ruler’s option be selected. Then the guides can be dragged from the top and side of the stage where the rulers can be seen. Insert-  The insert menu lets you insert new symbols, timeline effects, scenes, layers, layer folders and more relating to the timeline. Modify-  The modify menu have all the options fro modifying from Document properties to swapping bitmaps and symbols, editing symbols, shapes and timeline effects, combining shapes, transforming, arranging and aligning objects. Commands- Commands is a new Flash menu. You can use it in conjunction with the new History panel to generate commands made up of several steps taken to create some portion of a flash document. When you create documents, you might want to perform the same task numerous times. You can create a new command in the Commands menu from steps in the History panel and reuse the command multiple times. Steps replay exactly as they were originally performed. You can't modify the steps as you replay them. You should create and save a new command if there's a chance you might want to use a set of steps again, especially if you want to use those steps the next time you start Flash. Saved commands are retained permanently, unless you delete them. Steps that you copy using the History panel Copy Steps command are discarded when you copy something else. Control-  The control menu contains several options that control moves in and around the movie. You can also select most of these options by using keyboard shortcuts. For example, pressing Enter for a Live Preview test is far more efficient than going to the menu every time this control is required. Likewise, pressing the period key(.) or the comma key (,) to move forward or backward through the timeline is a quick shortcut. Most of the other options on the control menu are selected and left alone, such as Enable Live Preview. Window-  The window menu can be seen as a long-term storage menu for panels. Most developers and designers create a panel set they use by placing the panels they typically work with in the panel docks or on the stage and then selecting Save panel layout from the Window menu. Once a panel set has been saved, it’s typically opened when Flash is launched; if not, a favored panel set is chosen. During typical projects, the Window menu is seldom used if the user has planned a good panel arrangement for his or her project-making the window menu a “set and forget” menu. Help-  The help menu is much expanded and very complete in most cases. With the help menu items you can get all further detailed and advanced information needed relating to Flash. Getting started With Flash Document Properties: To set the size, frame rate, background color, and other properties of a new or existing document, you use the Document Properties dialog box. You can also use the Property inspector to set properties for an existing document. The Property inspector makes it easy to access and change the most commonly used attributes of a document. Flash lets you make the settings you specify in the Document Properties dialog box the default settings for any Flash document that you create. The exception to this is the Title and Description, which you need to specify for each Flash document that you create. Changing Document Properties At this point you're looking at a blank canvas surrounded by many controls. The large white square is called the Stage, and it's where you do all the working animation and place your assets you want to display in the SWF file, such as images, buttons, text, or animations.The Stage and panels are commonly called the Flash workspace or authoring environment. A panel near the bottom of the Flash application is titled Properties (If you don't see the panel. Window Menu> Properties> Properties). This panel is called the Property inspector. This panel enables you to change various properties of whatever is currently selected in your document (such as an image or a frame) or set properties for the entire SWF file (such as the frame rate or dimensions). If you don't have any objects or frames selected, the Property inspector enables you to modify properties for the document itself. 1. Now there are two ways to open the document properties panel. Though both will open the same document property dialog box but the process is different. 2. First is by opening the Property inspector (select Window > Properties > Properties) and click the button next to the text that says Size to open the Document Properties dialog box. Note: If you don’t see the following document properties button in the property inspector click on the work area i.e. the area outside the Stage (this will deselect everything on the stage). The button displays the current dimensions of the FLA file (550 x 400 pixels). By default the Stage size in a new Flash document is 550 pixels wide by 400 pixels high. When you click this button, you open a dialog box where you can change several document-wide properties (such as the Stage dimensions, color, and document frame rate). 3. Second method is by clicking on frame rate option at the bottom of the timeline panel. 4. You will see that when you click on either of the places i.e. on the frame rate in the timeline panel or the size button in the property inspector. Both will open a dialog box. You may change the size, background color, frame rate, ruler units etc. 5. Click OK when you finish entering the new dimensions to return to the authoring environment. When you return to the authoring environment, notice how the dimensions of your document change. 6. The default stage size of a flash document is 550px (width) x 400px (height). And the maximum stage size can be 2880 px. 7. You may also change the frame rate of the flash document by changing it from the Document Properties panel. By default it is kept at 12 fps (frames per second). But the maximum you can go till is 120fps. SWF Metadata in Macromedia Flash 8 The search engine optimization is of key point to the work out of every single web site and with this the major thing to take care of while starting up a website it to make it a lot easier to be indexed. Herewith, the latest added feature of Macromedia Flash 8 allows your .SWF file content to be indexed without difficulty or exertion. So, today you can add metadata with the Flash movie description (SWF file). To make it simple to read, we would recommend you to add it to the head of the .SWF file. There is the Resource Description Framework or the .RDF format file that is intended to define metadata; it is stored in the .SWF file in a W3C-complaint format. In all, expressing the same idea, Macromedia Flash 8 creates and stores the metadata for the .SWF file in a manner that other applications can read the values with ease. SEO before Macromedia Flash 8 The catchphrase “SEO” means Search Engine Optimization and is used to talk about the website development and make it so that it’s content was indexed and rated to all intents and purposes within the search results. Large number of companies or other businesses providing a specific service are in long felt need for the online organizations helping them become a great deal of public notice taking the advantage of search engine results. The websites that use Flash movies (.SWF files) are postponed in search engines for the reason that such kind of content is not easily indexed. Most of the search engines, for instance, Google can only index HTML text inside the Flash movie. Vast majority of text content loaded dynamically either into the Flash applications or Flash movies is incapable of being indexed by the existing search engine technology. Even ahead of Macromedia Flash 8 presented .SWF metadata you could have mentioned the fact that search engines as Google can find the text turned out to be in the Flash movie (.SWF file). Getting started With Flash Frame Rate Video is a sequence of images that appear on the screen in rapid succession, giving the illusion of motion. The number of frames that appear every second is known as the frame rate, and it is measured in frames per second (fps). The higher the frame rate, the more frames per second are used to display the sequence of images, resulting in smoother motion. The trade-off for higher quality, however, is that higher frame rates require a larger amount of data to display the video, which uses more bandwidth. Frame rate is the speed at which the animation plays, it is measured in number of frames per second. A frame rate that's too slow makes the animation appear to stop and start; a frame rate that's too fast blurs the details of the animation. A frame rate of 12 frames per second (i.e. by default) usually gives the best results on the web. QuickTime and AVI movies generally have a frame rate of 12 fps, while the standard motion-picture rate is 24 fps , while video uses 24 frames per second. The human brain will see the individual frames of an animation if it's below 24 fps. At 24 fps the brain can no longer keep up and is tricked into seeing an animation like it was someone walking down the street (no bumps). Which is why motion-pictures screen at 24 fps. Note: There is an exception to this rule. If you are performing calcuations and not requiring any animations bump up the frame rate to 120. If you keep your movie at 24 fps your 'go to and play' loops will take 1/24 of a second to complete. Now consider if your movie contain numerous loops, at 120 fps the speed saving is very big! For standalone Flash files and some hi-action movies like games. You may feel the need to push past 24 fps. This is up to you however be wary of the consideration mentioned later in this tutorial. Flash creates compact web animations so a trade off occurs - smaller file sizes and lessCPU intensive movies for slightly chunkier animations. At 12 fps, the end result is still pretty good. What will determine the quality of your movie on the web will be the complexity of the animation and the speed of the computer on which the animation is being played on. A fast animation or one with lots of objects can be CPU intensive which means the computer will have to "draw" the images much faster, and the more complex they are, the harder it will be. Sure, you can bump it up to 30 fps, but beware, if you have a groovy but CPUintensive animation many of your visitor's computers will grind away leaving them most unsatisfied - thus defeating the reason why you are using flash in the first place. You could use a preloader which would take out the bumps caused by a slow download but the CPUissue remains. You can only choose one frame rate for the entire movie so set it before you create your masterpiece. To do this choose Modify> Movie, and change the value in the text box. A common mistake when trying to understand frame rates is that the Frames-Per-Second setting is an accelerator, it isn't. The frames-per-second setting cannot make the movie go faster. It acts as a barrier to prevent powerful systems from running the movie faster than was intended - a "speed limit", if you will. When working with compressed video in a format like Flash video, frame rate can affect the quality of the video in hard-to-predict ways depending on how you encode the video and its specific content. Lower frame rates ostensibly provide less content to encode, which theoretically improves quality or decreases file size. At the same time, however, it makes it more likely that there are noticeable changes in the pixels from one frame to the next, which requires more data to encode. If you lower the frame rate and leave the data rate unchanged, the video may appear to stutter and motion may look less fluid than desired. Whenever the frame rate is reduced, it is always a good idea to use an evenly divisible ratio of the original frame rate. If your source has a frame rate of 24 fps, then reduce the frame rate to 12 fps, 8 fps, 6 fps, 4 fps, 3 fps, or 2 fps. If the source frame rate is 30 fps, in most cases you can adjust the frame rate to 30 fps, 15 fps, 10 fps, 6 fps, and so on. If your video is more than 10 minutes long, then audio will drift noticeably out of synch if you do not adhere to the 29.97 fps rate or use an accurate even division for lower frame rates (such as setting the frame rate to 14.98, which is half of 29.97). Because video looks much better at native frame rates (the frame rate at which the video was originally filmed), Adobe recommends leaving the frame rate high if your delivery channels and playback platforms allow it. For full-motion NTSC (the standard defined by the National Television System Committee in the U.S.), use 29.97 fps; for PAL (Phase Alternating Line, the dominant television standard in Europe), use 25 fps. If you lower the frame rate (which can significantly reduce the video data that must be encoded), Flash Video Encoder drops frames at a linear rate to achieve the new fps rate. However, if you need to reduce the frame rate, the best results come from dividing evenly. For example, if your source has a frame rate of 24 fps, then reduce the frame rate to 12 fps, 8 fps, 6 fps, 4 fps, 3 fps, or 2 fps. If the source frame rate is 30 fps, in most cases you can adjust the frame rate to 15 fps, 10 fps, 6 fps, and so on. Changing The Frame Rate At this point you're looking at a blank canvas surrounded by many controls. The large white square is called the Stage, and it's where you place assets you want to display in the SWFfile, such as images, buttons, text, or animations. The Stage and panels are commonly called the Flash workspace or authoring environment. A panel near the bottom of the Flash application is titled Properties (select Window > Properties > Properties if you don't see the panel). This panel is called the Property inspector. This panel enables you to change various properties of whatever is currently selected in your document (such as an image or a frame) or set properties for the entireSWF file (such as the frame rate or dimensions). If you don't have any objects or frames selected, the Property inspector enables you to modify properties for the document itself. 1. Now there are two ways to open the frame rate panel. Though both will open the same document property dialog box which contains the frame rate option but the process is different. 2. First is by opening the Property inspector (select Window > Properties > Properties) and click the button next to the text that says Size to open the Document Properties dialog box. There you have a text box for frame rate inputs. By default you will see 12fps. Note: Make sure you don't have a frame selected. Click the Stage if you don't see this button. The button displays the current dimensions of the FLA file (550 x 400 pixels). By default the Stage size in a new Flash document is 550 pixels wide by 400 pixels high. When you click this button, you open a dialog box where you can change several document-wide properties (such as the Stage dimensions, color, and document frame rate). Note: You can also create banners from a Macromedia template by selecting File > New from the main menu. Select the Templates tab and choose the Advertising category. 3. Second method is by clicking on frame rate option at the bottom of the timeline panel. 4. You will see that when you click on either of the places i.e. on the frame rate in the timeline panel or the size button in the property inspector. Both will open a dialog box which contains a text input box for the frame rate and by default it will be set to 12fps. 5. Click OK when you finish entering the new frame rate to return to the authoring environment. When you return to the authoring environment, notice the new frame rate will be written at the bottom of the timeline panel. Getting started With Flash Tools Tools Uses Selection Used for selecting objects on the stage in unlocked layers. The tool cannot select objects on layers with the visibility off, even if the layer is unlocked. Subselection Used for revealing anchor points on any drawing. You can use the tool for adjusting curves by dragging anchor points. Line Used for drawing lines in straight segments. Property Inspector options include color selection, stroke size, line type and custom styles. Lasso Used for selecting irregular shapes. Pen Used to draw Bezier curves. Property Inspector options include stroke and fill colors, line size and styles. Text This tool is used to write something on the stage. Oval Used for drawing ovals and circles. Rectangle Used for drawing rectangles and polystar. Pencil A freeform drawing tool that uses the stroke color. Brush A drawing tool that uses fill color. Free Transform This tool is used to change shapes, move center points and skew images. Fill Transform This tool is used for changing the direction of linear, radial gradients. Ink Bottle This tool colors the stroke in drawings. Paint Bucket Used to change the fill color of drawings. Eyedropper When this tool is dragged over a color, the color in the box changes to the color the eyedropper touches. Eraser With the help of this tool we can drag anywhere on the stage. Zoom The zoom tool is used to magnify a place. Stroke and Fill Colors Stroke colors are the colors of lines and the fill colors are the colors within the lines. By the help of this tool, we can change the color of the stroke and fill. Getting started With Flash Panels:- General Panels 1. Project Panel The project panel displays all files associated with a project so that all the files can be seen and accessed easily. Its very handy for organizing all the parts. When you double-click any of the files shown in the project panel, that file is loaded into flash. 2. Property Inspector The property inspector is context sensitive. Its display varies depending on what’s currently selected. Its one of the most used panels. With the help of this panel you can also change the size of your flash document. The most crucial aspect of the property inspector is the instance name window where instance names are placed. 3. Screens Panel It only appears when either a flash slide presentation or flash form application is in the document and can be toggled on or off in the window menu. Design Panels:- 1. The Align Panel This panel is used to organizing, aligning, spacing and sizing objects on the stage. All drawings and symbol instances can be aligned, but all layers to be aligned should be visible and unlocked. When only one object is selected then it will align that object according to the stage. 2. The Color Mixer Panel The Color Mixer panel helps you to select, edit, create and apply solid colors. We can also specify an alpha value to define the degree of transparency for a color. 3. The Color Swatches Panel The Color Swatches panel manages the color and gradient fills of your movie. By default it contains the web-safe palette of 216 colors. Web safe colors are those colors which are common to both Windows and Macintosh platforms. 4. The Info Panel The Info panel shows all the information of the object selected on the stage. It is also used to control the dimensions. This panel has a toggle button for symbol position i.e. you can get the information of its distance from the origin (starting point of x and y axis) and also from the center by just clicking on the left top box or the center box respectively. 5. The Scenes Panel The Scenes allows you to add, rename, delete and duplicate scenes. It is essential when you are working with documents with multiple scenes. 6. The Transform Panel The Transform panel helps you precisely scale selected objects horizontally and vertically, rotate or skew selected objects or create transformed copies of selected objects. Development Panels:- 1. The Actions Panel In the Actions panel the left side includes the actions toolbox and new script navigator. Actionscript is written in the right pane of the panel. 2. The Output Panel The output panel has two distinct and different functions, but it generally serves as a debugger tool. All trace statements as well as all programming errors send results to the output panel. Other Panels:- 1. The History Panel The history panel is used to record each action taken on the stage. You may also save selected steps (but not those denoted with a red 'x') as a command, which will be made available from the 'Commands' menu provided it doesn't require any user interaction. 2. The Accessibility Panel This panel is used to select which accessibility feature you want turned on. 3. Common Libraries Common library consists of Button, Classes and Learning interactions. Getting started With Flash The Library Panel The Library holds all the objects in the movie, from which instances can be dragged to the stage. It stores objects such as buttons, graphics, clips etc. When you drag a component to the stage, all the different parts that make up the component are placed in a folder in the library panel. You can also create symbols from the pop-down menu in the library panel. Using the Library Each Flash movie has a library, which holds its symbols. You can use the Library window to manage and control your Library. The Library stores all of your symbols so you can reuse them later. The top portion of the library window is the preview screen, giving you a small image of the symbol you've selected in the library. The bottom portion is the list of the symbols in your library, with different icons indicating the type of symbol they are. Opening your library is simple. 1. Draw a circle and convert it into a symbol (F8). Name it "Circle". 2. Delete the circle from the screen. 3. Open the Library – CTRL + L or click on WINDOWS MENU > LIBRARY  4. Select "Circle". Notice that the Library shows you a preview of the image. 5. Drag the circle onto the screen. Drag it again. You can also use "common libraries" to import pre-made things like navigation arrow buttons, movie graphics, and such. To open a pre-made library, follow the steps below. 1. Click on the "Window" menu. 2. Choose "Common Libraries" and select the library you'd like to use. You can also borrow from the common libraries and transfer the symbols into your own library. Remember that all Library items are downloaded once and stored in memory. You can repeatedly use library items without slowing download time. Organizing your Library Most everything you use in your Flash movie will end up in the Library. And therefore during big projects you’ll have quite a mess on your hands if you don’t organize. To avoid that you can store your library items in folders. Adding Folders in the Library 1. Adding folders to the Library is easy. Simply click the New Folder button on the Library to add a new folder 2. Drag items on top of a folder to place them inside. Tips for Using the Library One of the innovative features of Flash is its library structure. Flash uses special sets of files called "Libraries" which hold a series of files called "Symbols." Each symbol is a basic set of characteristics which can be repeated multiple times in a Flash movie. This repeatability keeps file size down. Flash: About Symbols Symbols are graphic elements, objects, that appear multiple times in the same flash movie. Each time they appear is called an "instance." There are three kinds of symbols used in Flash. The table below explains each kind and gives an example. Icon Symbol Type Definition Example graphic Movie Clip A Movie clip allows you to use a graphic with separate frames for animation. That way, if you have an animation you want to use in more than one movie or something you want to keep from cluttering your timeline, you can separate out the frames involved in the movie clip onto the movie clip's independent timeline. Button A Flash button has four frames (corresponding to its four states) and extra variables that allow for use of certain Flash ActionScript verbs. Buttons can be clicked on, allowing for interactivity in your movies.  Graphic A Graphic is a static image or piece of text. A graphic itself only has one frame, but a graphic symbol can have a timeline with multiple frames, but these run in sync with the movie's Timeline. Graphics and graphic symbols can both use multiple layers. If you're looking to have a longer movie segment embedded within your overall scene, a movie symbol is a better choice. Once you decide what type of symbol you want to make, you will need to create a symbol and then use instances of it in your movie. Using the library to manage media assets The library in a Flash document stores media assets that you create or import for use in a Flash document. The library stores imported files such as video clips, sound clips, bitmaps, and imported vector artwork as well as symbols. A symbol is a graphic, button, or movie clip that you create once and can reuse multiple times. You can also create a font symbol. The library also contains components that you have added to your document. Components appear in the library as compiled clips. The Library panel displays a scroll list with the names of all items in the library, which lets you view and organize these elements as you work. An icon next to an item's name in the Library panel indicates the item's file type. The Library panel has an options menu with commands for managing library items. You can open the library of any Flash document while you are working in Flash, to make the library items from that file available for the current document. You can create permanent libraries in your Flash application that is available whenever you start Flash. Flash also includes several sample libraries containing buttons, graphics, movie clips, and sounds that you can add to your Flash documents. You can export library assets as a SWF file to a URL to create a runtime-shared library. This lets you link to the library assets from Flash documents that import symbols using runtime sharing. To open the library from another Flash file: 1. Select File > Import > Open External Library. 2. Navigate to the Flash file whose library you want to open and click Open. The selected file's library opens in the current document, with the filename at the top of the Library panel. To use items from the selected file's library in the current document, drag the items to the current document's Library panel or to the Stage. To resize the Library panel: • Drag the lower right corner of the panel. • Click the Wide State button to enlarge the Library panel so it shows all the columns. • Click the Narrow State button to reduce the width of the Library panel. To change the width of columns: • Position the pointer between column headers and drag to resize. You cannot change the order of columns. To use the Library options menu: 1. Click the options menu button in the Library panel's title bar to view the options menu. 2. Click an item in the menu. Getting started With Flash Timeline The timeline shows the duration of the your project. It contains the frames, keyframes, playhead, layers and other motion picture-like editing features.The timeline is the area on the screen where you will be working with layers and frames to alter your movie's content and animation. A movie is a collection of frames and the timeline is the area in Flash where you will be configuring those frames (like the way a cartoon is made, with a collection of still pictures run together really fast to give the illusion of motion). The Timeline in Flash represents a strip of “film” with frames. To understand how the Timeline works, imagine a film editor with a movable playhead that displays the contents of the current frame on the stage when the playhead is moved over the frame. Below you can see a visual description of the timeline: Current Frame: The current frame indicates the frame number whose contents are directly visible on the stage (see stage below) and is the current position of the playhead. So, what you see on the stage, when there is no movie playing, is the current frame. Frames Per Second: Frames per second (or Frame rate) is the actual frames per second setting for your movie, when the movie is not playing. When the movie is playing, it dynamically shows the actual playback speed. However, frames per second and actual playback speed can differ dramatically based on the processor of the computer being used. Frames per second will always stay the same, but with a slower processor a user will view slower actual playback. Length of Movie: The term "length of movie in seconds" may be a little deceiving. The number is actually the elapsed time between the first frame of the movie and the current frame. Depending on where you place the playhead, the number will dynamically change as well. Playhead: The playhead allows you to select the frame to be altered. It also allows you to view the movie by scrubbing, or dragging the playhead across the timeline ruler. Frames: The frames in the timeline represent the frames or cells in an animated movie. To understand frames in Flash, it helps to understand the process of traditional animation. Briefly, the traditional manual process of animating requires a master animator and one or more assistant scene. Keyframes: The frames in which the master animator draws the images are called Keyframes. Keyframes in flash are the frames used to introduce new content in a document. When you move the playhead to a keyframe(or just click the keyframe), the content on the stage is “entered” into the keyframe. Keyframe are created by clicking a frame and pressing the F6 key or selecting Insert, Timeline, Keyframe from the menu. You can label keyframes to make your program clearer and easier to debug. To add a label, select the keyframes and enter the label in the frame window in the property inspector. Tweening Frames: Between the pair of keyframes, the assistant animators(known as in-betweeners or tweening frames) draw the frames(or tweens) that change the image from one keyframe to the next. This process, called tweening, results in a smooth transition between keyframes. Changing or editing anything on this type of frame will convert it into a keyframe. Blank keyframes: A blank keyframe is recognizable by a black circle on the frame. If content is placed in the keyframe, the black circle is filled. The initial frame in a layer is always a keyframe. The flash playhead can be dragged to any frame or keyframe . when you select a frame by clicking it, the playhead jumps to that frame. The content on the stage changes as the playhead is dragged left or right along the Timeline. Content in all layers is displayed as the playhead is moved over the frame containing the content. A regular frame contains the same content as the keyframe to the left of it. If a frame is part of a tween, it will contain uneditable content generated by Flash’s automated tweening process. Tweened frames contain the images equivalent to what the in-betweeners artists do in a traditional animation process. However, because the tweened frames contain images with shapes, positions, or some other in-between changes between keyframes, they’re “frozen” so that the animation process in the changes cannot be distorted. Keyframes with no content are blank. If a blank keyframe is inserted in a tween, all tweened frames are destroyed. The best use of blank keyframes is to insert spaces in a layer; in other words, blank keyframes can act as frame “spacers”. You can also re-size the timeline cells according to your taste and requirements by clicking on the button at the right end of the timeline in the current screen. You have many options from Tiny, Small, Normal, Medium to Large to Preview in Context. You can also make short the height of the timeline by selecting short. All together you get 8 re-sizing techniques for the timeline cells. Note: A keyframe span consists of a single keyframe followed by one or more frames of identical content. Keyframe spans have a light-gray background as shown below.