ptg Chapter 1 Getting Started with FlashCS5 11 buttons, arrows, or other navigation elements that move the viewer to different parts of a movie or to different locations on the Web. After you add a component, you can use behaviors to add functionality to the compo- nent to make it do what you want. In addition to behaviors, you can use built-in Timeline effects to add motion to elements. As you build in movie navigation and organization, it’s good design to break up large projects into smaller movies, which can be quickly accessed from a main movie. This keeps Internet download times to a minimum, and it makes projects easier to update, and more manageable for a team to produce. Step 5: Preview and test the movie After you create your project, you use one of the Test Movie commands to preview and test the movie to make sure it runs the way you want it to. It's important to test the functional- ity of your movie early and often during the development process to catch problems while they are still minor. Step 6: Publish the document as a movie file for use over the Internet When the movie runs the way you want it to, you can publish your production as a Flash movie that viewers can play on a Web page, using a browser with the Flash Player. Flash publishes the movie file (.swf) and creates an HTML file with information to display the movie file. Viewers can't change the movies in the SWF format; they can only play them. Step 2: Create or import media elements Step 4: Add navigational components, interactive behaviors, and motion effects Step 1: Setup document properties Step 6: Publish the document as a movie Step 5: Preview and test the movie Step 3: Position the elements on the Stage and sequence them in the Timeline From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg 12 Chapter 1 A file in Flash is called a document. Flash documents, which have the FLA filename extension, contain all the information required to develop, design, and test interactive content. Flash documents are not the same as the movies you play with the Flash Player. Instead, you publish your Flash documents as Flash movies, which have the SWF filename exten- sion and contain only the information needed to display the movie. A new Flash document is based on the scripting language you want to use, either ActionScript 2.0 or ActionScript 3.0. You can create new doc- uments in several ways including using the New command on the File menu and the New Document task pane. When you open a new Flash document, it’s blank, ready for you to create or insert text, graphics, and other media content. By default, the first Flash document is titled Untitled1. Flash numbers new documents consecutively. You can open and work on as many new documents as you have memory (RAM) for. Creating a New Document Create a New Blank Document Click the File menu, and then click New. TIMESAVER Click Flash Document on the Welcome screen to create a new blank document. Click the General tab. Click ActionScript 3.0 or ActionScript 2.0. IMPORTANT ActionScript 2.0 and ActionScript 3.0 are not compatible with each other. ActionScript 3.0 is recommended. ◆ If you want to create a specific type of document, click the type you want. Click OK. 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 Did You Know? You can open a new window with a copy of the current document. Create or open the Flash document you want to open in a new window, click the Window menu, and then click Duplicate Window. Creating New Documents for Other Purposes In addition to creating FLA documents in ActionScript 2.0 or 3.0 for the Flash Player, you can also create FLA documents to publish applications for Adobe AIR 2.0 (for Mac, Windows, and Linux), iPhone OS (for iPhone, iTouch, and iPad devices) ( New! ) , Flash Lite 4 (a Flash player for less power and memory-constraint devices), and Adobe Device Central (for mobile devices). For Your Information Documents with the FLA extension Document with other extensions From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg Chapter 1 Getting Started with FlashCS5 13 Creating a New Document from a Template Create a New Document from a Template Click the File menu, and then click New. TIMESAVER Click a template category on the Welcome screen to open the New From Template dialog box, where you can select a template. Click the Templates tab. Click a template category. Click the template you want to use. View the templates in the Preview box and read the description. Click OK. 6 5 4 3 2 1 Flash makes it easy to create many common documents based on a template. A template opens a Flash document (such as an animation or set of menus) with predefined formatting and placeholder text, graph- ics, and actionscripts. The templates make it easy to create common types of Flash projects. Flash comes with a set of templates, which includes the following categories ( New! ): Advertising, Animation, Banners, Media Playback, Presentations, and Sample Files. When you select a template category, a list of templates appears. Select a tem- plate to display a brief description. If you can’t find the template you want, you can check the Adobe Flash Support Center Online Web site for more. 5 2 4 6 3 See Also See “Saving a Document in Different Formats” on page 22 for information on saving a document as a template. From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg 14 Chapter 1 You can open an existing document file and the Flash program at one time, or you can open the file from within Flash. In Flash, you can use the Welcome screen, Open commands on the File menu, or Adobe Bridge CS5 (a stand-alone file management program that comes with Flash CS5) to open Flash documents, scripts, and movies in several for- mats. The default file format for Flash is FLA. However, the internal for- mat of an FLA file is XFL (eXtensible Form Language) ( New! ). XFL allows you to exchange file content between programs, such as Adobe InDesign and Adobe After Effects. You can also open an XFL file as you would an FLA file. When you open a document, a tab appears across the top of the Document window, which you can click to display it. Opening an Existing Document Open a Flash Document Click the File menu, and then click Open. TIMESAVER Click Open or a recently opened Flash document name on the Welcome screen to open a document. To open a specific type of Flash file, click the File as type list arrow (Win), or the File type popup (Mac), and then select the file format you want. Navigate to the drive or folder where the file is located. Click the document file you want to open. Click Open. 5 4 3 2 1 3 5 2 Did You Know? You can view what is inside of an XFL file. An XFL file is essentially a ZIP package containing the XML and the assets for a FLA file. To view the actual XML and assets of the FLA file, change the .XFL file extension to .ZIP and unzip the folder. Format Description ActionScript (.as) A file to store ActionScript code for a Flash document. XFL (.xfl, .xml) A packaged XML representation of a FLA file along with the assets for that file. Communications (.asc) A file to store ActionScript code on a computer with Flash Communication Server. FLA Document (.fla) A Flash document you create and save in Flash authoring environment. JavaScript (.jsfl) A separate file with JavaScript code to add new functionality to Flash. Flash Movie (.swf) A compressed movie file you publish in the Flash authoring environment. Other Dynamics From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg Chapter 1 Getting Started with FlashCS5 15 Open a Recently Opened Document Click the File menu, and then point to Open Recent. Click the document you want to open. Browse Documents in Adobe Bridge Click the File menu, and then click Browse in Bridge. Adobe Bridge CS5 opens, displaying files and folder on your computer. Select a workspace display to view your files the way you want. Navigate to the drive or folder where the Flash file is located. To open a Flash file, double-click the file icon. When you’re done, click the File menu, and then click Return to Adobe Flash. TIMESAVER Press A +Option (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+O (Win). 5 4 3 2 1 2 1 1 2 Did You Know? You can open a recent file quickly from the Start menu (Win). Click the Start button, point to Adobe Flash Professional CS5 (7), Recent Items (Vista) or My Recent Documents (XP), and then click the file name you want to open. 4 5 3 2 From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg 16 Chapter 1 When you create a new Flash document or open an existing one, you need to set up or change the document properties. You set document properties at the beginning of the project to make basic decisions about how your movie looks and operates. You use the Document Properties dialog box or the Property Inspector to specify document property settings that affect the entire movie, such as the background color, the size and location of the Stage, the frame rate—the number of frames per second in which the computer plays an animation, and the unit of measure for rulers. These settings apply only to the current doc- ument unless you set Flash defaults to apply to every document. You can use the Properties command on the Window menu to display the Property Inspector, which appears vertically on the screen. Changing Document Properties View Document Properties Click the Selection tool on the Tools panel. Click the Window menu, and then click Properties to open the Property Inspector. TIMESAVER Press A +F3 (Mac) or Ctrl+F3 (Win). View the document properties at the top of the Property Inspector: ◆ Stage Size. The current size appears in the button label. ◆ Background Color. The color of the Stage background. ◆ Frame Rate. The speed at which the movie runs. 3 2 1 1 3 Document name Did You Know? You can change the background color quickly in the Property Inspector. Open the Property Inspector, click the Background color box, and then select a color from the panel. You can change the frame rate quickly in the Property Inspector. Open the Property Inspector, and then enter the number of animation frames to be dis- played every second in the Frame Rate box. From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg Chapter 1 Getting Started with FlashCS5 17 Change Document Properties Create or open a document. Click the Modify menu, and then click Document. TIMESAVER Click the Size button in the Property Inspector or double-click the frame-rate box in the Status bar on the Timeline. To set the Stage dimensions, do one of the following: ◆ Specify size in pixels. Enter values in the Width and Height boxes. The default size is 550 x 400 pixels. ◆ Set size to an equal space around content. Click Contents. ◆ Set size to the maximum print area. Click Printer. ◆ Set size to default setting. Click Default. Click the Background Color box, and then select a color. Enter a frame rate. For most computers playing from the Web, 8 fps (frames per second) to 24 fps is adequate. The default is 24 fps. To specify the unit of measure for rulers, click the Ruler Units popup, and then select an option. To set properties for all new documents, click Make Default. Click OK. 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 3 7 Improving Searchability by Internet Search Engines When you add a title and description to Flash document properties, you’re making it easier for Internet search engines to categorize the content in your Flash movie file (.swf). The title and description boxes are metadata properties for the SWF file format. The Internet uses metadata as a standard format for gathering and transferring data. When you enter a title and description, use descriptive key- words that reflect the type of user you want to attract to your Web site. For Your Information See Also See “Displaying Rulers” on page 89 for information on using rulers. 6 4 8 From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg 18 Chapter 1 When you open multiple documents, you can use the Window menu or tabs at the top of the Document window to switch between them. You can click a tab name to switch and activate the document. By default, tabs are displayed in the order in which you open or create documents. When you want to move or copy information between documents, it’s easier to display several Document windows on the screen at the same time and move them around. However, you must make the window active to work in it. Each tab also includes a Close button to quickly close a document. If the document view is too small or large, you can change it to suite your needs. Working with Document Windows Switch Between Multiple Documents Open more than one document. Click a tab name to switch to the document. TIMESAVER Press Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+Shift+Tab to cycle to the tab you want. ◆ You can also click the Window menu, and then click a document name at the bottom of the menu. 2 1 2 From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg Chapter 1 Getting Started with FlashCS5 19 Change the Document View Open more than one document. Click the View Size list arrow in the Edit bar, and then select a view size: Fit in Window, Show Frame, Show All, or a percentage. ◆ You can also enter a custom percentage in the View Size box, and then press Enter (Win) or Return (Mac). To display the document window in the full screen, click the Window menu, and then click Hide Panels. ◆ To show panels, click the Window menu, and then click Show Panels. TIMESAVER Press F4 to toggle between Hide/Show Panels. Move Document Windows Around Open more than one document. Do either of the following: ◆ Rearrange the order of tabbed documents. Drag a windows’ tab to a new location. ◆ Dock or undock a document window. Drag the window’s tab out of the group or into the group. 2 1 3 2 1 3 panels hidden 22 Undocked document window From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg 20 Chapter 1 When you save a FlashCS5 document within the authoring environ- ment, the document is saved in the FLA format. If you want to display a document in the Adobe Flash Player, you need to publish or export the document in the SWF format. When you save a new document, you give it a name and specify the location in which to save the file. Name your documents clearly so you can easily locate them later. An unsaved Flash file displays an asterisk (*) after the name in the document name tab. To retain older versions of a document as you update it, use the Save As command and give each new version a new number with the old name, such as project1, project2 and so forth. In addition to saving files in the FLA format, you can also save flash content in the XFL (eXtensible Form Language) format ( New! ) as an uncompressed Flash document for use in other programs, such as Adobe InDesign and Adobe After Effects. Saving a Document Save a Document in the Flash Format Click the File menu‚ and then click Save. If you are saving a document for the first time, continue. Otherwise, Flash saves the current document. ◆ To save a file with a different name, click the File menu, and then click Save As. Type the new file name. Navigate to the drive or folder location where you want to save the document. Click Save. If the file was created in Flash CS4, click Save or Cancel to convert it to Flash CS5. 5 4 3 2 1 3 5 2 Did You Know? You can revert to the last saved ver- sion of a document. Click the File menu, and then click Revert. You can save more than one document at a time. Click the File menu, and then click Save All. 4 From the Library of Wow! eBook . into the group. 2 1 3 2 1 3 panels hidden 2 2 Undocked document window From the Library of Wow! eBook ptg 20 Chapter 1 When you save a Flash CS5 document. 3 2 1 2 1 1 2 Did You Know? You can open a recent file quickly from the Start menu (Win). Click the Start button, point to Adobe Flash Professional CS5