Chapter 1
2
Working with Flash Documents
Figure 1.1 The On Launch options in the General
category of the Preferences dialog tell Flash what
type of document(s), if any, to open on when you
launch Flash.
Working with Flash
Documents
Most of the basic document operations in
Flash—opening, closing, and saving les—
are straightforward to experienced computer
users. Creating new documents may be a little
di erent than in other programs, because Flash
creates a variety of document types. Flash’s
Welcome screen assists you in opening and
creating these various Flash documents.
To set launch preferences:
1. From the Flash application menu
(Mac) or Edit menu (Windows), choose
Preferences.
e Preferences dialog appears. e
General category is selected by default.
2. From the On Launch menu
,
choose one of
the following
(Figure 1.1):
▲
No Document. Flash’s menu bar,
application frame, and panels appear
at launch, but no document opens.
▲
New Document. Flash opens a new
document at launch.
▲
Last Documents Open. Flash opens
the documents that were open when
you ended the previous work session.
▲
Welcome Screen. ( e default setting.)
Flash displays the Welcome screen at
launch and anytime you have closed all
the documents during a work session.
3. Click OK.
✔ Tip
■ To change launch preferences to the
New Document option quickly, click the
Don’t Show Again button in the lower-left
corner of the Welcome screen. A dialog
appears to remind you that you must
change the launch settings in the General
tab of the Preferences dialog to see the
Welcome screen again.
About Preferences
To see, or not to see, the Welcome screen
is just one of many preference settings in
Flash. To choose new settings, you open
the Preferences dialog. From the Flash
menu (Mac) or Edit menu (Windows),
choose Preferences, and select a cat-
egory from the list in the left-hand pane.
Choose settings for that category in
the main window. Preferences fall into
ten categories: General, ActionScript,
Auto Format, Clipboard, Drawing,
Text, Warnings, Workspace, PSD File
Importer, and AI File Importer. You’ll
learn about speci c Preferences settings
as they relate to speci c tasks through-
out this book.
The Flash Authoring Tool
3
Touring the Welcome Screen
Touring the Welcome Screen
Flash’s default setting opens the Welcome screen when you launch. e Welcome screen
contains active links that let you open documents quickly. You can open a new document, a
document that you worked on recently, or a template document. You can link to Flash tutori-
als or to the Flash Exchange site, where you can download third-party extensions, such as
new components, as they become available (Figure 1.2).
Figure 1.2 The Welcome screen presents common operations you might want to carry out at the
beginning of a work session: opening a document you worked on recently (A), creating a new Flash
document (B), or creating documents from templates (C). There are also links for browsing the Flash
Exchange site, to fi nd third-party extensions (D). For new users, there are links to the tutorials that
come with Flash as well as other training resources (E).
A B C
D
E
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