834 Flash CS6 The Missing Manual

  Flash CS6 Chris Grover

  The book that should have been in the box®

  Flash CS6: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover Copyright © 2012 Chris Grover. All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

  O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for mos). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or

  June 2012: First Edition.

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  2012-06-11 First release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=0636920022787 for release details.

  The Missing Manual is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Flash CS6: The

  Missing Manual, the Missing Manual logo, and “The book that should have been in

  the box” are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media is aware of a trademark claim, the designations are capitalized.

  While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained in it.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-449-31625-9 [M]

  Contents

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  The Missing Credits

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chris Grover is a veteran of the San Francisco Bay Area advertising

  and design community, having worked for over 25 years in print, video, and electronic media. He has been using and writing about computers from the day he first fired up his Kaypro II. Chris is the

  www.BolinasRoad.com

  owner of Bolinas Road Creative ( ), an agency that helps small businesses promote their products and services. His

  Fine Homebuilding Macworld.com writing has appeared in a range of media from to .

Office 2011 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual Adobe Edge

  He’s also the author of ,

  Preview 5: The Missing Manual , and several other books in the Missing Manual series.

ABOUT THE CREATIVE TEAM

  Nan Barber (editor) has been working on the Missing Manual series since its incep-

  tion. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and various Apple products. Email:

  nanbarber@oreilly.com .

  Rachel Steely (production editor) is an avid lover of books in all their forms, and can

  typeset, illustrate, and bind a book by hand. She enjoys traveling and speaks fluent Spanish. In her spare time, she draws Celtic knotwork, reads, and plays the violin.

  Julie Van Keuren (proofreader) quit her newspaper job in 2006 to move to Montana

  and live the freelancing dream. She and her husband, M.H. (who is living the novel-

  little_media@yahoo.com writing dream), have two sons, Dexter and Michael. Email: .

  Ron Strauss (indexer) specializes in the indexing of information technology publica-

  tions of all kinds. Ron is also an accomplished classical violist and lives in northern California with his wife and fellow indexer, Annie, and his miniature pinscher, Kanga.

  rstrauss@mchsi.com Email: .

  Chris Deely (tech reviewer) is a software developer living in Philadelphia with his

  wife, Nichole, and their son, Christopher Jr. He has been working with the Flash platform since 2004, building applications with ActionScript, Flex, and AIR. Chris currently leads a User Interface development team responsible for building enter- prise application front-ends.

  Tina Spargo (technical reviewer), her husband (and professional musician) Ed,

  their children, Max and Lorelei, and their two silly Spaniels, Parker (Clumber) and Piper (Sussex), all share time and space in their suburban Boston home. Tina jug- gles being an at-home mom with promoting and marketing Ed’s musical projects and freelancing as a virtual assistant. Tina has over 20 years’ experience support-

  www.tinaspargo.com ing top-level executives in a variety of industries. Website: . And of course, thanks to Joyce, my wife, who helps me in everything I do.

THE MISSING MANUAL SERIES

  Recent and upcoming titles include:

  by Susan Prosser and Stuart Gripman

  , Third Edition by E.A. Vander Veer

  by Matthew MacDonald

  by Preston Gralla

  by Preston Gralla

  by Preston Gralla

  by David Sawyer McFarland

  by David Sawyer McFarland

  by David Pogue

  , by Matthew MacDonald

  , by David Sawyer McFarland

  by Nancy Conner

  by Matthew MacDonald

  Missing Manuals are witty, superbly written guides to computer products that don’t come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each book features a handcrafted index; cross-references to specific pages (not just chapters); and RepKover, a detached-spine binding that lets the book lie perfectly flat without the assistance of weights or cinder blocks.

  — Chris Grover

  I’m always amazed at the number of pros it takes to create a book like Flash CS6: The Missing Manual. My thanks go out to everyone who worked on this book. Nan Barber has worked with me on several books and her skill and grace under fire is always appreciated. I’d also like to thank Rachel Steely for coordinating the produc- tion and Ron Strauss for writing the index. Rebecca Demarest managed to take my screenshots and crude charts and make them suitable for publication. A special thanks to the people who catch the errors that always try to sneak onto the pages: technical reviewers Chris Deely and Tina Spargo and proofreader Julie Van Keuren.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

• Access 2010: The Missing Manual

• Buying a Home: The Missing Manual

• Creating a Website: The Missing Manual, Third Edition

• CSS: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

• David Pogue’s Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

• Dreamweaver CS5.5: The Missing Manual

• Dreamweaver CS6: The Missing Manual

• Droid x: The Missing Manual

• Droid 2: The Missing Manual

• Droid x2: The Missing Manual

• Excel 2010: The Missing Manual

• Facebook: The Missing Manual

• FileMaker Pro 11: The Missing Manual

• Flash CS5.5: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
• Galaxy S II: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla
• Galaxy Tab: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla

• Google+: The Missing Manual by Kevin Purdy
• Google Apps: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
• Google SketchUp: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
• HTML5: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
• iMovie ’11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Aaron Miller
• iPad 2: The Missing Manual, Third Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer
• iPhone: The Missing Manual, Fifth Edition by David Pogue
• iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual by Craig Hockenberry
• iPhoto ’11: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Lesa Snider
• iPod: The Missing Manual, Tenth Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer and David Pogue
• JavaScript & jQuery: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by David Sawyer

  McFarland

• Kindle Fire: The Missing Manual by Peter Meyers
• Living Green: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
• Mac OS x Lion: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
• Mac OS x Mountain Lion: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
• Microsoft Project 2010: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
• Motorola xoom: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla
• Netbooks: The Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer
• NOOK Tablet: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla
• Office 2010: The Missing Manual by Nancy Connor, Chris Grover, and Matthew

  MacDonald

• Office 2011 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover
• Palm Pre: The Missing Manual by Ed Baig
• Personal Investing: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
• Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider
• Photoshop CS6: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider
• Photoshop Elements 10: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage
• PHP & MySQL: The Missing Manual by Brett McLaughlin
• PowerPoint 2007: The Missing Manual by E.A. Vander Veer
• Premiere Elements 8: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover

• QuickBase: The Missing Manual by Nancy Conner
• QuickBooks 2012: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
• QuickBooks 2013: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

• Quicken 2009: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore

• Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion Edition by David Pogue
• Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mountain Lion Edition by David Pogue
• Wikipedia: The Missing Manual by John Broughton
• Windows xP Home Edition: The Missing Manual, Second Edition , by David Pogue
• Windows xP Pro: The Missing Manual, Second Edition , by David Pogue, Craig

  Zacker, and Linda Zacker

• Windows Vista: The Missing Manual by David Pogue

• Windows 7: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
• Word 2007: The Missing Manual by Chris Grover

• Your Body: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

• Your Brain: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald

• Your Money: The Missing Manual by J.D. Roth

  For a full list of all Missing Manuals in print, go to www.missingmanuals.com/library .html . First released in 1996 under the name FutureSplash, it was a tool for creating web-based animations. It’s still the go-to application for that job; however, along the way it’s acquired new capabilities. Today, Flash powers video websites like YouTube and Hulu (-1). It’s used to develop desktop applications like eBay Desktop. As you read this, Flash/ActionScript pros are developing the next generation of apps for handheld devices like the Droid RAZR and the iPhone. Flash has grown up with the World Wide Web and managed to carve out an important niche. In fact, there are a whole slew of programs that make use of Flash technol- ogy. They include Flex, Flash Builder, and Flash Catalyst. Still, if you want to learn Flash’s design and animation features as well as its programming and development features, then Flash Professional CS6 is the place to start.

  Here are just some of the things you can do with Flash:

  F lash’s evolution is unique, even for the fast-changing computer software world.

  Introduction

• Animate. You can create original artwork using Flash’s tools, or you can add images from your other favorite programs. Flash recognizes the most common image, video, and sound file formats. Once your artwork is in Flash, you can add motion, sound, and dazzling effects. Surely you’ve spent some quality time watching JibJab cartoons (-2).
• Multimedia websites. Today’s websites include motion, video, background music, and above all, interactive objects. Flash’s built-in programming language, ActionScript, was designed to create interactive objects. You can create eye- catching, attention-grabbing websites with Flash. It’s your choice whether you sprinkle Flash bits on various pages or go whole-hog and develop a 100 percent Flash site.
• Tutorials. Web-based training courses, which often include a combination of text, drawings, animations, video clips, and voice-overs, are a natural fit for Flash. By hooking Flash up to a server on the back end, you can even present your audience with graded tests and up-to-the-minute product information. You don’t have to deliver your tutorials over the web, though; you can publish them as standalone projector files (Chapter 20) or AIR applications (Chapter 21) and deliver them to your students via CDs, DVDs, or mobile apps.

  FIGURE I-1 Sites like Hulu and YouTube have made great use of Flash’s video abilities. You can check any site to see whether it’s using Flash behind the scenes. Just right-click (or Control-click) an image that you think might be Flash. If it says “About Flash Player” at the bot- tom of the pop-up menu, you guessed right.

  CS6

• Presentations. PowerPoint presentations are fine…up to a point. With Flash, you can create self-running presentations that are more creative and have a higher degree of interactivity.
• Customer service kiosks. Many of the kiosks you see in stores and building lobbies use Flash to help customers find what they need. For example, photo kiosks walk customers through the process of transferring images from their digital cameras and ordering prints; kiosks in banks let customers withdraw funds, check interest rates, and make deposits.
• Television and film effects. The Hollywood set has been known to use Flash to create visual effects for TV shows and even small feature films. But where the TV and film industry is seriously adopting Flash is on promotional websites, where designers can wed Flash graphics to scenes taken from their movies and

shows to present powerful trailers, interactive tours of movie and show sets,

  CS6 and teasers.

• Games and other programs. With support for runtime scripting, back-end data transfers, and interactive controls like buttons and text boxes, Flash has every- thing a programmer needs to create entertaining, professional-looking games.
• Mobile apps. With Flash CS6, the biggest change is the ease with which you can develop apps for mobile devices, from iPads to Androids.

  FIGURE I-2 With a little creativity, your Flash animations can capture the public’s attention. Just ask the folks at JibJab.

  What’s New in Flash Professional CS6

  Flash has been evolving and adding features at a breakneck pace since Adobe acquired Macromedia at the end of 2005. There are many benefits to being part of Adobe’s Creative Suite, primarily the smooth interaction with applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver. If you’ve used other Adobe programs, you’ll also welcome the consistency in drawing, text, and color-choosing tools. By the same token, if you’re new to the Adobe family, the skills you learn in Flash will come in handy if you move on to other Adobe products. The last few versions of Flash Professional introduced a slew of new features. For example, CS4 added a more powerful, yet easy-to-use motion tween, complete CS6

  with Motion Editor. New 3-D capabilities opened up the world of motion, and IK Bones (inverse kinematics) made it easy for animators to link objects for realistic movement. Flash CS5 added a new text engine called Text Layout Framework (TLF), which provides the kind of text control that you’d find in Adobe Illustrator or InDesign, and Adobe simplified the mysterious process of font embedding. IK bones were enhanced with a new Spring property. ActionScript coding was made easier with code snippets—cut and paste bits of code that are easy to drop into your document. Code hinting provides an instant reference and tips on what to do next. Flash CS5 also made it easier to build Adobe AIR projects that run as standalone programs on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. An interim release, Flash CS5.5 added the ability to develop apps for iOS (iPhones and iPads) and Android devices.

  Of course, all those features are covered in this book, along with the latest batch of enhancements. Flash CS6 comes quickly on the heels of the incremental release CS5.5 and refines many of the features added then. The development of mobile apps heads the list:

• App development for multiple devices. It’s easier than ever to develop an application that works on desktops (Windows, Mac, and Linux) and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Flash enhancements make it easier to share files and scale projects for a variety of screen sizes.
• Built-in iPhone and iPad App Packager. The much-publicized squabble be- tween Apple and Adobe is at least partially resolved. Using Flash, you can build apps for all of Apple’s iDevices.
• Built-in Android app packager. Use your Flash skills to build apps for Android smartphones and tablets. Test your apps immediately on devices connected by USB cables.
• The Simulator is a new tool used when you’re debugging mobile apps. It gives you the ability to test mobile features, such as touchscreen gestures, on your desktop computer.
• Bundle AIR runtime with apps. If you’re publishing apps, now you can include the AIR runtime with your apps, saving your audience the extra step of down- loading the runtime.
• Templates and code snippets for mobile devices. Adobe has added to the library of templates and code snippets, making it easier to develop apps for iPhones, iPads, and Android mobile devices. You’ll find snippets that show how to interact with touchscreen gestures such as swipes and pinches. Templates show how to use built-in accelerometers and geo-location features.
• Pin IK bones.

  Pinning locks IK bones to a specific position on the stage, making it much easier to create poses and control your models.

• Copying layers. Flash preserves structure and other details when copying lay- ers between files and projects.

cache as bitmap feature converts vector art to

• Symbol rasterization. The

  ABCS

  bitmaps, increasing mobile device performance, CPU efficiency, and improving battery life.

• Auto-save and file recovery. Like your favorite word processor, Flash now has a feature that automatically saves your documents. Should disaster strike, you’re less likely to lose your work.
• Incremental compilation. Flash is smarter when compiling (publishing) your document for testing. As a result, there’s a shorter wait when you repeatedly make changes and test your work.
• Conversion to HTML and JavaScript. Some web animation features that were almost exclusively the domain of Flash are now possible with HTML (hypertext markup language), JavaScript, and jQuery. Flash CS6 has the ability to export part or all of an animation for use in HTML or JavaScript projects.

  Animation ABCs

  Animators used to draw each and every frame by hand. Sure, they developed some shortcuts, but that’s still hundreds or thousands of images depending on the length of the animation. Major animation houses employed whole armies of graphic art- ists, each charged with producing hundreds of drawings that represented a mere fraction of the finished work. What we chuckled at for a scant few minutes took weeks and dozens of tired, cramped hands to produce. One mistake, one spilled drop of coffee, and these patient-as-Job types would have to grab fresh paper and start all over again. When everything was done, the animation would have to be put together—much like one of those flip books where you flip pages real fast to see a story play out—while it was being filmed by special cameras.

  With Flash on your computer, you have the equivalent of a design studio at your fingertips. You provide the inspiration, and Flash can help you generate pro-quality animations and full-blown interactive applications.

UP TO SPEED

  An Animation by Any Other Name

  You may occasionally hear Flash animations referred to (by with its connotations of quietly sitting in a theater balcony books, websites, and even Flash’s own documentation) as eating popcorn, doesn’t convey one of the most important

  movies . Perhaps that’s technically accurate, but it sure can features Flash offers: interactivity.

  be confusing.

  Here’s the most accurate way to describe what you create using QuickTime’s .mov files are also called movies, and some people Flash: a website, program, or app with a really cool, animated refer to video clips as movies; but to Flash, these are two very interface. Unfortunately, that description is a bit long and different animals. In addition, Flash lets you create and work unwieldy, so in this book, what you create using Flash is called with movie clips, which are something else entirely. And movie , an animation or an app . It’s pretty incredible, when you think about it. A few hundred bucks and a few hours

  NUTSHELL

  spent working with Flash, and you’ve got an animation that, just a few years ago, you’d have had to pay a swarm of professionals union scale to produce. Sweet! Naturally, if you’re new to animation, it will go easier if you learn the basic terms, tricks, and techniques used by Flash animators.

  Flash in a Nutshell

  Say you work for a company that does custom auto refinishing. First assignment: Design an intro page for the company’s new website. You have the following idea for an animation: The first thing you want your audience to see is a beat-up jalopy limping along a city street toward the center of the screen, where it stops and morphs into a shiny, like-new car as your company’s jingle plays in the background. A voice-over informs your audience that your company has been in business for 20 years and offers the best prices in town.

  Across the top of the screen, you’d like to display the company logo, as well as a navigation bar with buttons—labeled Location, Services, Prices, and Contact—that your audience can click to get more information about your company. But you also want each part of the car to be a clickable hotspot. That way, when someone clicks one of the car’s tires, he’s whisked off to a page describing custom wheels and hubcaps; when he clicks the car’s body, he sees prices for dent repair and repaint- ing; and so on. Here’s how you might go about creating this animation in Flash:

  keyframe of the

• Using Flash’s drawing tools, you draw the artwork for every animation—that is, every important image. For example, you’ll need to create a keyframe showing the beat-up junker and a second keyframe showing the gleaming, expertly refurbished result. (Chapter 2 shows you how to draw artwork in Flash; Chapter 3 tells you everything you need to know about keyframes.)
• Within each keyframe, you might choose to separate your artwork into different

  layers . Like the see-through plastic cels that professional animators used in the

  old days, layers let you create images separately and then stack them on top of one another to make a single composite image. For example, you might choose to put the car on one layer, your company logo on a second layer, and your city-street background on a third layer. That way, you can edit and animate each layer independently, but when the animation plays, all three elements appear to be on one seamless layer. (Chapter 4 shows you how to work with layers.)

  tweening , you tell Flash to fill in each and every frame

• Through a process called

  between the keyframes to create the illusion of the junker turning slowly into

  a brand-new car. Flash carefully analyzes all the differences between the key- frames and does its best to build the interim frames, which you can then tweak or—if Flash gets it all wrong—redraw yourself. (Chapter 3 introduces tweens,

  BASICS

  and Chapter 8 gives you the lowdown on advanced techniques.)

• As you go along, you might decide to save a few of the elements you create

  (for example, your company logo) so you can reuse them later. There’s no sense in reinventing the wheel, and in addition to saving you time, reusing elements actually helps keep your animation files as small and efficient as possible. (See

  Chapter 7 for details on creating and managing reusable elements.)

• Add the background music and voice-over audio clips, which you’ve created in other programs (Chapter 11).
• Create the navigation bar buttons, hotspots, and other ways for your audience to interact with your animation (Chapters 12–18).
• Test your animation (Chapter 19) and tweak it to perfection.

  publish

• Finally, when your animation is just the way you want it, you’re ready to it. Without leaving the comfort of Flash, you can convert the editable .fla file you’ve been working with into a noneditable .swf file and either embed it into an HTML file or create a standalone projector file that your audience can run without having to use a browser. Chapter 20 tells you everything you need to know about publishing.

  The scenario described above is pretty simple, but it covers the basic steps you need to take when creating any Flash animation.

  The Very Basics

  You’ll find very little jargon or nerd terminology in this book. You will, however, en- counter a few terms and concepts that you’ll use frequently in your computing life:

• Clicking. This book gives you three kinds of instructions that require you to use your computer’s mouse or trackpad. To click means to point the arrow cur- sor at something on the screen and then—without moving the cursor at all—to press and release the left clicker button on the mouse (or laptop trackpad). To

  double-click , of course, means to click twice in rapid succession, again without

  moving the cursor at all. And to drag means to move the cursor while pressing the left button continuously.

• Keyboard shortcuts. Every time you take your hand off the keyboard to move the mouse, you lose time and potentially disrupt your creative flow. That’s why many experienced computer fans use keystroke combinations instead of menu commands wherever possible. Ctrl+B (

  ⌘-B), for example, is a keyboard shortcut for boldface type in Flash (and most other programs). When you see a shortcut like Ctrl+S (

  ⌘-S) (which saves changes to the current document), it’s telling you to hold down the Ctrl or ⌘ key, and, while it’s down, type the letter S, and then release both keys.

• Choice is good. Flash frequently gives you several ways to trigger a particular

  BOOK

  command—by choosing a menu command, or by clicking a toolbar button, or by pressing a key combination, for example. Some people prefer the speed of keyboard shortcuts; others like the satisfaction of a visual command array avail- able in menus or toolbars. This book lists all the alternatives, but by no means are you expected to memorize all of them.

  About This Book

  Despite the many improvements in software over the years, one feature has grown consistently worse: documentation. With the purchase of most software programs these days, you don’t get a single page of printed instructions. To learn about the hundreds of features in a program, you’re expected to use online electronic help.

  But even if you’re comfortable reading a help screen in one window as you try to work in another, something is still missing. At times, the terse electronic help screens assume you already understand the discussion at hand and hurriedly skip over important topics that require an in-depth presentation. In addition, you don’t always get an objective evaluation of the program’s features. (Engineers often add technically sophisticated features to a program because they can , not because you need them.) You shouldn’t have to waste your time learning features that don’t help you get your work done.

  The purpose of this book, then, is to serve as the manual that should have been in the box. In this book’s pages, you’ll find step-by-step instructions for using every Flash feature, including those you may not have quite understood, let alone mastered, such as working with video or drawing objects with ActionScript. In addition, you’ll find clear evaluations of each feature that help you determine which ones are useful to you, as well as how and when to use them.

   NOTE 

  This book periodically recommends other books, covering topics that might interest Flash designers and developers. Careful readers may notice that not every one of these titles is published by Missing Manual parent company O’Reilly Media. While we’re happy to mention other Missing Manuals and books in the O’Reilly family, if there’s a great book out there that doesn’t happen to be published by O’Reilly, we’ll still let you know about it.

  Flash CS6: The Missing Manual is designed for readers of every skill level, except the

  super-advanced programmer. If Flash is the first image creation or animation program you’ve ever used, you’ll be able to dive right in using the explanations and examples in this book. If you come from an animation or multimedia background, you’ll find this book a useful reference for unique Flash topics such as the motion tweens and the Motion Editor. The primary discussions are written for advanced-beginner or intermediate computer users. But if you’re a first-timer, special sidebar articles called Up to Speed provide the introductory information you need to understand the topic at hand. If you’re an advanced user, on the other hand, keep your eye out for similar shaded boxes called Power Users’ Clinic. They offer more technical tips, tricks, and shortcuts for the experienced Flash fan. The Design Time boxes explain

  BOOK the art of effective multimedia design.

  The ActionScript programming language is a broad, complex subject. This book isn’t an exhaustive reference manual, but it gives you a great introduction to ActionScript programming, providing working examples and clear explanations of ActionScript principles.

  Macintosh and Windows

  Flash Professional CS6 works almost precisely the same in its Macintosh and Windows versions. You’ll find the same buttons in almost every dialog box. Occasionally, they’ll be dressed up differently. In this book, the illustrations have been given even-handed treatment, rotating between Windows 7 and Mac OS x.

  Shortcut keys are probably the area where the Mac and Windows versions differ the most. Often where Windows uses the Ctrl key, Macs use the ⌘ key. You’ll find some other relatively minor differences, too.

  Whenever this book refers to a key combination, you’ll see the Windows keystroke listed first (with + symbols, as is customary in Windows documentation); the Macintosh keystroke follows in parentheses (with - symbols, in time-honored Mac fashion). In other words, you might read, “The keyboard shortcut for saving a file is Ctrl+S (

  ⌘-S).”

  About the Outline Flash CS6: The Missing Manual is divided into five parts, each containing several

  chapters:

• Part 1, Creating a Flash Animation guides you through the creation of your very first Flash animation, from the first glimmer of an idea to drawing images, animating those images, and testing your work.
• Part 2, Advanced Drawing and Animation is the designer’s feast. Here you’ll see how to manipulate your drawings by rotating, skewing, stacking, and align- ing them; how to add color, special effects, and multimedia files like audio and video clips; how to slash file size by turning bits and pieces of your drawings into special elements called symbols; and how to create composite drawings using layers. Text is an increasingly important part of Flash animations and applications, so this section introduces important text topics. In Part 3, you’ll learn how ActionScript works with text. In this section, you’ll learn about the Motion Editor and how to use the IK Bones feature (Chapter 9).
• Part 3, Adding Interactivity shows you how to add ActionScript 3.0 actions to your animations, creating on-the-fly special effects and giving your audience the power to control your animations. An entire chapter is devoted to predesigned components, like buttons, checkboxes, sliders, and scrolling lists. Powerful but easy to use, these components give your animation professional functions and style. This section includes lots of examples and ActionScript code. You can

copy and modify some of the practical examples for your own projects. You’ll

  RESOURCES

  see how to loop frames and how to let your audience choose which section of an animation to play, and how to customize the prebuilt interactive components that come with Flash. You’ll find specific chapters on using ActionScript with text and using ActionScript to draw.

• Part 4, Debugging and Delivering Your Animation focuses on testing, de- bugging, and optimizing your animation. You’ll also find out how to publish your animation so that your audience can see and enjoy it, and how to export an editable version of your animation so that you can rework it using another graphics, video editing, or web development program. The last three chapters focus on Adobe AIR, a system for creating standalone apps using Flash. You’ll learn how to deliver these apps to Windows, Mac, and Linux desktops, as well as iPhones, iPads, and Android mobile devices.
• Part 5 has two Appendixes: Appendix A: Installation and Help, explains how to install Flash and where to turn for help. Appendix B: Flash Professional CS6, Menu by Menu, provides a menu-by-menu description of the commands you’ll find in Flash CS6.

  About→These→Arrows

  Throughout this book, you’ll find instructions like, “Open your Program Files→Adobe→ Adobe Flash CS6 folder.” That’s Missing Manual shorthand for much longer sentences like “Double-click your Program Files folder to open it. Inside, you’ll find a folder called Adobe; double-click to open it. Inside that folder is a folder called Adobe Flash CS6; open it, too.” This arrow shorthand also simplifies the business of choosing menu commands, as you can see i-3.

  FIGURE I-3 When you see instructions like “Choose Text→Style→Italic,” think, “Click to pull down the Text menu, and then move your mouse down to the Style command. When its submenu opens, choose the Italic option.”

  

About the Online Resources

  As the owner of a Missing Manual, you’ve got more than just a book to read. On- line, you’ll find example files so you can get some hands-on experience, as well as tips, articles, and maybe even a video or two. You can also communicate with the Missing Manual team and tell us what you love (or hate) about the book. Head over

  ONLINE to www.missingmanuals.com , or go directly to one of the following sections.

  Missing CD

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  PART Creating a Flash

  1 Animation

CHAPTER 1: Getting Around Flash CHAPTER 2: Creating Simple Drawings CHAPTER 3: Animate Your Art

  CHAPTER

  1 Getting Around Flash

  s mentioned in this book’s introduction, Flash performs several feats of audio- visual magic. You use it to create animations, to display video on a website, to create handheld apps, or to build a complete web-based application. So

  A

  it’s not surprising that the Flash workspace is crammed full of tools, panels, and window-1). But don’t be intimidated—you don’t have to conquer these tools all at once. This chapter introduces you to Flash’s main work areas and often- used toolbars and panels, so you can start creating Flash projects right away. You’ll experiment with Flash’s stage and timeline, and see how Flash lets you animate graphics so that they move along a path and change shape.

   TIP 

  To get further acquainted with Flash, you can check out the built-in help screens by selecting Help→Flash Help. Once the help panel opens, click Using Flash Professional. It’s on the left side of the somewhat busy window. You can read more about Flash’s help system in Appendix A.

  Starting Flash

  You start Flash just as you would any other program—which means you can do it in a few different ways, depending on whether you have a PC or a Mac. Installing the program puts Flash CS6 and its related files in the folder with your other programs, and you can start it by double-clicking its icon. Here’s where it’s usually installed:

  

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Flash CS6\Flash.exe . You can

• Windows. Go to create a shortcut or drag the file to the taskbar for quicker starting.

  Macintosh HD\Applications\Adobe Flash CS6\Adobe Flash CS6

• Mac. Go to

  . You

  FLASH can make an alias or drag the file to the Dock for quicker starting.

  FIGURE 1-1 The Flash Professional workspace is divided into three main areas: the stage, the timeline, and the Panels dock. This entire window, to- gether with the timeline, toolbars, and panels, is sometimes called the Flash desktop, the Flash interface, or the Flash authoring environment.

  Here are some other Windows ways to start the program:

• From the Vista or Windows 7 Start menu, choose All Programs→Adobe Flash Professional CS6.
• For Windows xP, go to Start→All Programs→Adobe→Adobe Flash Professional CS6.
• If you’re a keyboard enthusiast, press the Windows key and begin to type flash .

  As you type, Windows searches for a match and displays a list with programs at the top. Most likely, the Flash program is at the top of the list and already selected, so just press Enter. Otherwise, use your mouse or arrow keys to select and start the program.

  Here are some Mac launching options:

• Even if you haven’t added the Flash icon to the Dock, you can still find it in the Dock’s Applications folder. Click and hold the Applications folder icon and choose Adobe Flash CS6→Adobe Flash CS6.
• Want to hunt down Flash in the Finder? Most of the time, it’s installed in Macintosh HD→Applications→Adobe Flash CS6→Adobe Flash CS6.

• If you’d rather type than hunt, use Spotlight. Press ⌘-space and then begin to

  FLASH type flash . As you type, Spotlight displays a list of programs and files that match.

  Most likely, the Flash program is at the top of the list and already selected, so just press Return. Otherwise, use the mouse or arrow keys to select and start the program. When you first start Flash, up pops the Welcome screen, shown i-2. This screen puts all your options—like starting a new document or returning to a work in progress—in one handy place. For good measure, Adobe includes some links to help references and resources on its website.

  FIGURE 1-2 This Welcome screen appears the first time you launch Flash—and every subsequent time, too, unless you turn on the “Don’t show again” checkbox (pull down the bottom of the window if you don’t see it). If you ever miss the convenience of seeing all your recent Flash documents, built-in templates, and other options in one place, then you can turn it back on by choosing Edit→Preferences (Windows) or Flash→Preferences (Mac). On the General panel, choose Welcome Screen from the On Launch pop-up menu.

   NOTE 

  If Flash seems to take forever to open—or if the Flash desktop ignores your mouse clicks or responds sluggishly—you may not have enough memory installed on your computer. See page 767 for more advice.

  When you choose one of the options, the Welcome screen disappears and your

  FLASH

  document takes its place. Here are your choices:

• Create from Template. Clicking one of the little icons under this option lets you create a Flash document using a predesigned form called a template . A template helps you create an animation more quickly, since a Flash developer has already done part of the work for you. You can find out more about tem- plates in Chapter 7.
• Open a Recent Item. As you create new documents, Flash adds them to this list.

  Clicking one of the filenames listed here tells Flash to open that file. Clicking the folder icon lets you browse for and open any other Flash file on your computer.

   TIP 

  The options for creating new Flash documents and opening recent documents also appear on the File menu, as sho3.

  FIGURE 1-3 Several of the options on each menu include keystroke shortcuts that let you perform an action without having to mouse all the way up to the menu. For example, instead of selecting File→Save As, you can press Ctrl+Shift+S to tell Flash to save your Flash document. On the Mac, the keystroke is Shift-

  ⌘-S.

• Create New. Clicking one of the options listed here lets you create a brand-new

  Flash file. Most of the time, you want to choose the first option, ActionScript 3.0, which is a garden-variety animation file. ActionScript is the underlying pro-

  FLASH

  gramming language for Flash animations. The current version of ActionScript is 3.0, and it’s the version used for the projects in this book. You can use the ActionScript 2.0 option if you need to work with a Flash project that was created several years ago. For details on the file formats for different Flash projects, see the box below.

   NOTE 

  Old programming pros—you know who you are—may have reasons to prefer ActionScript 2.0. For example, you might choose this option if you’re continuing work on a project created using ActionScript 2.0, or if you’re working with a team using ActionScript 2.0.

  FREqUENTLY ASKED qUESTION Understanding Flash File Formats

Why are there so many different options under Create New on has the programming options and support for making

the Welcome screen? What are they all for ? iOS apps.