Macromedia Flash MX 2004 For Dummies

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ISBN: 9780764543586 | 076454358X
Cover: Paperback
Copyright: 10/24/2003

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Macromedia Flash MX 2004 For Dummies guides beginning animators through the basics of creating their first Flash animations. Authors Ellen Finkelstein and Gurdy Leete, both experienced Flash professionals and trainers, help users create basic figures, add text and layers, incorporate user actions, edit and add sound, and publish the final results. Macromedia Flash MX 2004 For Dummies comes with a CD that includes all the examples used in the book, sample animations from other Flash users, and a trial version of the product itself.

Introduction

(1)

About This Book

(1)

How to Use This Book

(1)

Foolish Assumptions

(1)

Conventions Used in This Book

(1)

How This Book Is Organized

(2)

Part I: A Blast of Flash

(1)

Part II: 1,000 Pictures and 1,000 Words

(1)

Part III: Getting Symbolic

(1)

Part IV: Total Flash-o-Rama

(1)

Part V: The Movie and the Web

(1)

Part VI: The Part of Tens

(1)

Part VII: Appendixes

(1)

About the CD-ROM

(1)

Icons Used in This Book

(1)

Where to Go from Here

(1)

Part I: A Blast of Flash

(36)

Getting Acquainted with Flash MX 2004

(20)

Discovering Flash

(1)

Understanding What You Can Create with Flash MX 2004

(1)

Determining When Not to Use Flash MX 2004

(1)

Getting the Right Start

(2)

Starting Flash on a PC

(1)

Starting Flash on a Mac

(1)

Creating a new movie

(1)

Opening an existing movie

(1)

Taking a Look Around

(5)

Tooling around the toolbars

(1)

Using panels

(1)

Discovering the Flash menus

(2)

Staging your movies

(1)

Following a timeline

(1)

Getting Help in a Flash

(2)

Multiple Help manuals

(1)

Finding more help on the Web

(1)

Try It, You'll Like It

(8)

Conceiving your first animation

(1)

Creating flashy drawings

(3)

Making graphics move

(2)

Publishing your first animation for posterity

(1)

Exiting Flash

(2)

Your Basic Flash

(14)

Looking at the Big Picture

(2)

Setting the Stage

(2)

Grabbing a Graphic

(5)

Understanding vectors and bitmaps

(1)

Finding graphics

(1)

Going to the Library

(4)

Using a Template

(2)

Printing Your Movie

(3)

Part II: 1,000 Pictures and 1,000 Words

(94)

Getting Graphic

(30)

Sharpen Your Pencil

(3)

Setting the Pencil modifier

(2)

Setting the stroke type

(1)

Setting the color

(1)

Creating Shapely Shapes

(2)

Line up

(1)

Be square

(1)

Be an egg

(1)

Mixing and Matching Shapes

(2)

Cutting up shapes

(1)

Placing objects on top of each other

(2)

Creating Curves with the Pen

(1)

Drawing straight lines

(1)

Drawing curves

(1)

Getting Artistic with the Brush

(5)

Brush Mode

(1)

Brush Size

(1)

Brush Shape

(1)

Pressure and tilt modifiers

(1)

Smoothing your brush strokes

(1)

Pouring on the Paint

(1)

Strokes, Ink

(1)

A Rainbow of Colors

(6)

Solid citizens

(3)

Gradient colors

(1)

Bitmap fills

(2)

Locking a fill

(1)

Drawing Precisely

(4)

The ruler rules

(1)

Using guides

(1)

Working with the grid

(1)

Snapping turtle

(1)

Pixel, pixel on the wall

(1)

The Import Business --- Using Outside Graphics

(5)

Importing graphics

(2)

Using imported graphics

(3)

You Are the Object Editor

(34)

Selecting Objects

(3)

Selecting with the Selection tool

(2)

Lassoing your objects

(1)

Selecting everything in one fell swoop

(1)

Moving, Copying, and Deleting

(5)

Movin' on down the road

(4)

Aligning objects with the Align panel

(1)

Copying objects

(1)

Makin' it go away

(1)

Making Shapes More Shapely

(9)

Reshaping shapes and outlines

(1)

Using the Subselect tool

(1)

Freely transforming and distorting shapes

(3)

Straightening lines and curving curves

(1)

Optimizing curves

(1)

Expanding and contracting filled shapes

(1)

Softening edges

(1)

Converting lines to fills

(1)

Transforming Fills

(2)

Transferring Properties

(1)

Finding and Replacing Objects

(1)

Transforming Objects

(4)

Scaling, scaling

(2)

'Round and 'round and 'round we rotate

(1)

Getting skewy

(2)

Flippety, floppety

100

(1)

Getting Grouped

100

(3)

Changing the transformation point

101

(2)

Breaking Apart Objects

103

(1)

Establishing Order on the Stage

103

(1)

Reusing Your History

104

(5)

Using the History panel

105

(4)

What's Your Type?

109

(14)

Presenting Your Text

109

(12)

Creating text

110

(1)

Editing text

111

(3)

Setting character attributes

114

(3)

Hyperlinking text

117

(1)

Getting the best text appearance

118

(1)

Setting up paragraph formats

119

(1)

Creating input and dynamic text

120

(1)

Creating Cool Text Effects

121

(2)

Layer It On

123

(14)

Creating Layers

124

(3)

Using layers

124

(1)

Changing layer states

125

(2)

Getting Those Layers Right

127

(5)

Deleting layers

127

(1)

Copying layers

127

(1)

Renaming layers

128

(1)

Reordering layers

128

(1)

Organizing layers

129

(1)

Modifying layer properties

130

(2)

Creating Guide Layers

132

(1)

Opening Windows with Mask Layers

133

(4)

Creating a mask layer

134

(1)

Editing mask layers

134

(1)

Animating mask layers

135

(2)

Part III: Getting Symbolic

137

(32)

Heavy Symbolism

139

(16)

Understanding Symbol Types

139

(2)

Using graphic symbols

140

(1)

Using movie clip symbols

140

(1)

Using button symbols

141

(1)

Using font symbols

141

(1)

Creating Symbols

141

(7)

Changing the properties of a symbol

144

(1)

Editing symbols

145

(1)

Using symbols from other movies

146

(2)

Using the Flash Library

148

(1)

Using the Flash For Dummies Library

148

(1)

Working with Instances

148

(7)

Inserting instances

149

(1)

Editing instances

150

(5)

Pushing Buttons

155

(14)

Creating Simple Buttons

155

(3)

Understanding button states

156

(1)

Making a basic button

157

(1)

Putting Buttons to the Test

158

(1)

Creating Complex Buttons

159

(10)

Adding a sound to a button

159

(2)

Adding a movie clip to a button

161

(2)

Adding an action to a button

163

(2)

Creating a button that acts on text input

165

(4)

Part IV: Total Flash-o-Rama

169

(72)

Getting Animated

171

(30)

Who Framed the Animation?

171

(1)

Preparing to Animate

172

(3)

Master of the Timeline

173

(1)

Turtle or hare?

174

(1)

Animating with Keyframes

175

(1)

Creating Animations Instantly with Timeline Effects

176

(3)

Frame after frame after frame

177

(2)

Stillness in the night

179

(1)

The Animation Tween

179

(12)

From here to there --- motion tweening

180

(7)

Tweening shapes

187

(4)

Editing Animation

191

(6)

Adding labels and comments

192

(1)

Selecting frames

192

(1)

Copying and pasting

193

(1)

Moving frames

193

(1)

Adding frames

194

(1)

Deleting frames

194

(1)

Turning keyframes back into regular frames

194

(1)

Reversing your animation

194

(1)

Faster or slower?

194

(1)

Changing the animation settings

195

(1)

Onion skinning

195

(2)

Moving everything around the Stage at once

197

(1)

Making the Scene

197

(4)

Breaking your movie into scenes

198

(1)

Manipulating that scene

198

(3)

Getting Interactive

201

(22)

Understanding Actions

201

(1)

Using Behaviors

202

(3)

Adding Actions to Frames

205

(3)

Adding Actions to Buttons

208

(2)

Adding an Action to a Movie Clip

210

(3)

Using Actions

213

(3)

Timeline Control actions

213

(1)

Browser/Network actions

214

(2)

Making Objects Work For You

216

(4)

Method acting

217

(1)

Creating animated masks with movie clips

217

(1)

Dynamically loading music from the Web

218

(2)

Exploring Advanced ActionScript

220

(3)

Programming constructs

220

(1)

Start-and-stop drag

220

(1)

Making comments

220

(1)

ActionScript 2.0

221

(1)

External scripting

221

(1)

Learning more

222

(1)

Extravagant Audio, High-Velocity Video

223

(18)

Play It Louder!

224

(3)

Importing sounds

224

(1)

Placing sounds into a movie

225

(2)

Editing Sounds

227

(2)

Deleting parts of a sound

228

(1)

Changing the volume

228

(1)

Managing Sound

229

(2)

Video Magic

231

(10)

Embedding video into Flash

231

(6)

Editing video in Flash

237

(2)

Linking to video in Flash

239

(2)

Part V: The Movie and the Web

241

(72)

Putting It All Together

243

(32)

Building Slide Presentations --- Fast!

243

(4)

Creating a Preloader

247

(2)

Sharing Libraries on the Run

249

(2)

Creating a shared library

249

(1)

Using a shared library

250

(1)

Using Named Anchors

251

(1)

Adding the Power of Components

252

(10)

Using radio buttons in a Flash movie

253

(2)

Using check boxes in a Flash movie

255

(2)

Using combo boxes in a Flash movie

257

(2)

Using list boxes in a Flash movie

259

(1)

Using scroll panes in a Flash movie

260

(1)

Using windows in a Flash movie

261

(1)

Creating an Entire Web Site with Flash

262

(5)

Creating navigation with getURL

264

(1)

Using the Timeline to store Web content

264

(3)

Testing for the Flash Player

267

(3)

Letting the user decide

267

(1)

Detecting the Flash Player version

268

(1)

Creating alternative sites

269

(1)

Using the Movie Explorer

270

(2)

Making Your Site More Accessible

272

(3)

Publishing Your Flash Files

275

(38)

Optimizing Your Movies for Speed

276

(2)

Simplifying artwork

276

(1)

Optimizing text

277

(1)

Using shared libraries

277

(1)

Compressing sound

277

(1)

Animating efficiently

278

(1)

Testing Movies

278

(3)

Using the Test Movie command

279

(1)

Testing a movie in a Web browser

280

(1)

Saving Your Work in Flash MX Format

281

(1)

Publishing Flash Movies

282

(1)

Publishing to SWF

283

(3)

Publishing to HTML

286

(7)

Understanding the HTML code for a movie

286

(2)

Specifying Flash Player detection and other HTML settings

288

(5)

Publishing to Other Formats

293

(9)

Creating GIF graphic files

293

(3)

Creating JPEG graphic files

296

(2)

Creating PNG graphic files

298

(1)

Creating QuickTime movies

299

(3)

Creating self-playing movies

302

(1)

Using Publish Profiles

302

(2)

Using Publish Preview

304

(1)

Posting Your Movie to Your Web Site

305

(1)

Exporting Movies and Images

305

(2)

Creating Printable Movies

307

(6)

Preparing your movie for printing

308

(1)

Specifying printable frames

309

(1)

Specifying the print area

309

(1)

Printing movies from the Flash Player

310

(3)

Part VI: The Part of Tens

313

(26)

Frequently Asked Questions

315

(12)

How do I make drag-and-drop objects?

315

(2)

Why is motion tweening not working?

317

(1)

How can I sync sound with motion?

318

(1)

What is the best way to import bitmaps?

319

(2)

How do I rescale my movie's size?

321

(1)

What are the best movie creating tips?

322

(1)

Can Flash do 3-D?

323

(4)

The Top Ten Web Design Tips

327

(4)

Set Your Goal

327

(1)

Make Thumbnail Sketches First

327

(1)

Connect the Parts to the Whole

328

(1)

Keep It Simple

328

(1)

Use Fewer Than Four Fonts

328

(1)

Be Consistent

328

(1)

Make It Lean and Fast

329

(1)

Know Who's Watching and How

329

(1)

Ensure Your Viewer Has the Flash Player

330

(1)

Test and Then Test Again

330

(1)

The Ten Best Flash Resources

331

(6)

Do the Tutorials

331

(1)

Take a Course

331

(1)

Look on the Flash Web Page

332

(1)

Join a Flash Discussion Group

332

(1)

Check Out the Flash Resource Sites

333

(2)

Check Out Sites That Use Flash

335

(1)

Attend a Flash Conference

335

(1)

Look at Our Sites

336

(1)

Collect Flash Movies

336

(1)

Reuse Your Best Stuff

336

(1)

Ten Great Web Sites That Use Flash

337

(2)

Part VII: Appendixes

339

(2)

Appendix A: Installing Flash and Setting Your Preferences

341

(10)

Installing Flash

341

(3)

Installing Flash onto a PC from a CD

341

(1)

Installing Flash by downloading it to your PC

342

(1)

Installing Flash onto a Mac from a CD

343

(1)

Installing Flash by downloading it to your Mac

343

(1)

Setting Your Preferences

344

(4)

General tab

345

(1)

Editing tab

346

(1)

Clipboard tab

346

(1)

Warnings tab

347

(1)

ActionScript Editor

347

(1)

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts

348

(3)

Appendix B: The Property Inspector and the Panels

351

(14)

The Tools Panel

351

(1)

The Property Inspector

352

(2)

Property inspector with no selection

353

(1)

Property inspector with a shape selected

353

(1)

Property inspector with keyframe selected

353

(1)

Property inspector with a symbol instance selected

354

(1)

The Align Panel

354

(1)

The Color Mixer Panel

355

(1)

The Color Swatches Panel

356

(1)

The Info Panel

356

(1)

The Scene Panel

356

(1)

The Transform Panel

357

(1)

The Actions Panel

358

(1)

The Debugger Panel

358

(1)

The Movie Explorer Panel

358

(2)

The Output Panel

360

(1)

The Accessibility Panel

360

(1)

The Components Panel

360

(2)

The Component Inspector

362

(1)

The History Panel

362

(1)

The Strings Panel

362

(3)

Appendix C: What Those Obscure Terms Really Mean

365

(6)

Appendix D: What's on the CD-ROM

371

(8)

System Requirements

374

(1)

Using the CD

374

(1)

Software on the CD-ROM

375

(1)

Dreamweaver

375

(1)

Fireworks

375

(1)

Photoshop

376

(1)

Flash Player

376

(1)

Swift 3D

376

(1)

Adobe Acrobat Reader

376

(1)

Your Own Personal Library of Graphics, Sound, and Music

376

(1)

Flash Movies Galore

377

(1)

E-book Version of Macromedia Flash MX 2004 For Dummies

378

(1)

Troubleshooting Your CD Problems

378

(1)

Index

379

(10)

End-User License Agreement

389

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Macromedia Flash MX 2004 For Dummies

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials