Introduction of Macromedia Flash

Flash is a program by Macromedia for creating interactive, animated online content. Animated simply means "to have movement" -- Flash content does not have to be a cartoon. It is commonly used to mimic software interface elements such as scroll bars, drop-down menus, buttons, and navigational systems. The term "Flash" has also come to mean the actual files created using Macromedia’s program of the same name.

Getting to know the Flash authoring environment makes you more effective and efficient as you create movies. Youll get to know the parts of the Flash window, which include the Toolbar, Timeline, Stage, panels, and Property Inspector.

The Toolbar, also known as the Tools panel, contains tools that you can use to draw, paint, select, and modify artwork. The Timeline represents the overall structure of a Flash document and controls the content. The Timeline consists of layers, frames, and scenes that make up a Flash document. Layers are like transparent sheets stacked on top of one another. Each layer can contain different images that appear on the Stage. A frame displays content at a specific moment on the Stage. The order in which frames appear in the Timeline determines the order in which they appear in the document. As you play a document, the playhead moves through the Timeline displaying the current frame with each layer on the Stage. If a project requires many animation sequences with hundreds of frames, you can organize the animations into scenes to make them easier to work with and manage. Below the Timeline is the Stage, which provides a place to compose the content for individual frames. Panels are windows that allow you to view, organize, and change elements and related options in a document. The Property Inspector is a specialize panel that allows you to change object specific attributes and options.

With Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004, you can author, preview, publish, and validate content for Flash Lite.

Flash MX Professional 2004 uses two versions of the Flash Player for authoring: the Flash MX Professional 2004 test movie player and the stand-alone player. Whenever you select the Control > Test Movie or Control > Test Scene menu commands in Flash MX Professional 2004, the test movie player is started. You can use the stand-alone player to view an existing Flash SWF movie after it has been published. Once you have set the publish settings for Flash Lite, you can preview SWF files using the test movie player and additional information, warning, and error messages will be displayed to let you know if there is any violation of Flash Lite rules and syntax. This helps you determine how to make the content Flash Lite compatible.

A movie clip is a symbol which (generally speaking) resides in the library, with one or more instances of it on stage.

The content in a movie clip can be anything from a single shape in a single frame to multiple layers containing content (often including other movie clips) changing over many frames.

• Every movie clip instance has its own timeline, its own playhead, and its own functions and variables.

• Every movie clip instance also has its own name, which may be assigned by you in the properties panel, or will be assigned by Flash otherwise. If you want to control a movie clip instance with action script, you need to give it an instance name.

• The main timeline of a Flash movie can also be treated as a movie clip instance (and controlled in the same way as a movie clip instance, with some exceptions). Its name is _root. It can also be accessed with the name _parent by a movie clip sitting in one of its frames.

_root is an absolute address; it always refers to the main timeline of the movie. _parent is a relative address; it is a way of addressing a movie clips containing movie clip (timeline), regardless of where they both fall in the overall hierarchy of movie clips in the movie. A relative address is always preferable because of its flexibility. Even if the published movie is subsequently loaded into a movie clip in another movie (eg, for preloading purposes), all relative (_parent-based) addresses remain valid, but _root is no longer the same.

• When a movie clip instance is encountered in the frame of a timeline (ie, when the playhead gets to a frame holding a movie clip instance), the movie clips playhead will begin playing immediately and will continue to play unless told to do otherwise, or unless the playhead of the timeline its in reaches a frame where the movie clip doesnt exist. Ideally, a movie clip is placed in a single frame of a timeline, or in a frame which has a stop action in it (in another layer named actions). The stop action stops the main movie, but the playhead of the movie clip continues to play.

Here is a list of properties of movie clips that you can alter with action script.

Property	Discription
_alpha	transparency (100=opaque, 50 = 50% translucent, 0=invisible)
_x	horizontal pixel position of the movie clips registration point, within the movie clips containing timeline (0=left edge, 5 = 5 pixels to the right of the containers left edge, -10 = 10 pixels to the left of the containers left edge)
_y	vertical pixel position of the movie clips registration point, within the movie clips containing timeline (0=top, 5 = 5 pixels down from the top of the container)
_xscale	movie clips width, as a percentage of its actual width (eg, set to 25 to make movie clip one quarter the width it was when first placed on stage). Scaling is done relative to clips registration point
_yscale	movie clips height, as a percentage of its actual height (eg, set to 50 to make movie clip half as tall as it was when first placed on stage). Scaling is done relative to clips registration point
_visible	movie clips visibility (true = showing, false = hidden)
_rotation	movie clips rotation around its registration point, in degrees clockwise, relative to its original orientation.
(color)	there is no property for changing the color, but you can set the color by creating a color object for the movie clip and using setRGB to set the clips color
The next property in the table is not settable, but is useful for finding out what frame of the movie clip the play head is currently in
_currentframe	not settable, but can be read to see what frame the movie clips play head is in

The menu bar at the top of the Flash application window displays menus with commands for controlling Flash functionality. The menus include File, Edit, View, Insert, Modify, Text, Commands, Control, Window, and Help.

The edit bar, at the top of the Timeline, contains controls and information for editing scenes and symbols, and for changing the magnification level of the Stage.

The tools in the Tools panel let you draw, paint, select, and modify artwork, as well as change the view of the Stage.

• The view area contains tools for zooming and panning in the application window.

• The options area displays modifiers for the currently selected tool. Modifiers affect the tools painting or editing operations.

A symbol is a reusable object used/created in Flash. A Symbol can be reused throughout your movie or imported and used in other movies. There are three types of symbols: Graphics, Buttons, and Movie clips.

A copy of a symbol used in the movie is called an Instance, which can have its own independent properties (like color, size, function, etc.) different from the original symbol. All symbols used in a flash movie are stored in the Library from where you can drag-and-drop new instances of the symbols into your movie. When a symbol is edited all of its instances get updated, but changing the properties, effects or dimensions of an instance of a symbol does not affect the original symbol or other instances.

are reusable static images that are used mainly to create animations. Any drawn vector/plain text/imported bitmap (photo), or combinations of these, can be converted into a single controllable object: as a graphic symbol. They have only one frame in their timeline.

are used for timeline navigation - They add interactivity to the movie and respond to mouse clicks, key press or rollovers/rollout, and other actions. You define the graphics associated with various button states (Up/Over/Down/Hit), and then assign actions to the instance of a button. They have 4 frames in their timeline - one each for the up, over and down states, and one to define the hit area of the button.

are reusable pieces of flash animation - consisting of one or more graphic/button symbols - thus they are flash movies within your flash movie. They have their own non-restricted Timeline (any number of layers and frames - just like the main timeline) that plays independent of the main movies Timeline. The best thing about using movie clips is that you can control them from actionscript - you can change their dimensions, position, color, alpha, and other properties and can even duplicate and delete them.