Adobe Flash CS4 Professional for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickStart Guide

Frame-by-Frame Animations

221

Selecting Frames in Keyframe Spans

Figure 8.10 Both frame-selection styles treat

protoframes identically for selection. Position the

pointer over a protoframe (top) and click to select

it (bottom).

Selecting Frames in

Keyframe Spans

Flash o ers two styles for selecting frames in

the Timeline; you set the style in Preferences.

Frame-based selection, the default style,

treats every frame individually. Span-based

selection treats frames as members of a

keyframe span—the keyframe plus any in-

between frames that follow it and display its

content. In the span-based selection style,

clicking one frame in the middle of a span

selects the entire span.

Flash CS4 introduces a new twist on the con-

cept of spans with motion-tween spans and

pose spans. No matter which selection style

you set in Preferences, there is only one way

to make selections within these spans; it’s

similar to the span-based selection but with

a few variations. (You’ll learn about working

with these new types of spans in Chapters 11

and 13.)

Except where noted, the examples in this

book use Flash’s default selection style,

frame-based selection.

To select undefi ned frames:

To work with protoframes in either selection

style, do any of the following:

◆ To select one protoframe, click it

(Figure 8.10).

◆ To select two protoframes and all the

frames between them, Shift-click the

 rst and last protoframes.

◆ To select noncontiguous protoframes,

#

-click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows)

the protoframes.

 e process of selecting frames that have

not been de ned works identically in

Flash’s two frame-selection styles.

Selecting Frames in Keyframe Spans

Chapter 8

222

Figure 8.11 Choose the way frame selection works

in the Timeline from the General category of the

Preferences dialog.

Figure 8.12 In the General section of the Preferences

dialog, select the Span-Based Selection check box to

work with keyframe spans as a unit in the Timeline.

Figure 8.13 In the General section of the Preferences

dialog, deselect the Span-Based Selection check box

to work with individual keyframes in the Timeline.

Figure 8.14 In Flash’s frame-based selection

style, clicking a frame in the middle of a

keyframe span (top) selects just that

frame (bottom).

To choose a selection style:

1.

Choose Flash > Preferences (Mac) or

Edit > Preferences (Windows).

 e Preferences dialog appears.

2.

From the Category list, select General.

 e General settings appear in the right-

hand pane of the dialog (Figure 8.11).

3.

In the Timeline section, choose either of

the following frame-selection styles:

▲

To manipulate keyframe spans in

the Timeline, select the Span-Based

Selection check box (Figure 8.12).

▲

To manipulate individual frames in

the Timeline, deselect the Span-Based

Selection check box (Figure 8.13).

To select frames inside keyframe

spans—frame-based mode:

In the Timeline—with preferences set to

frame-based selection style—do one of the

following:

◆ To select a keyframe, click it.

◆ To select the last frame in a keyframe

span, click it.

◆ To select just a middle frame in a keyframe

span, click that frame (Figure 8.14).

◆ To select an entire keyframe span, double-

click any frame in the span.

◆ To add frames to your selection, Shift-click

the additional frames. Flash selects all the

frames between the last selected frame

and the frame you Shift-click.

◆ To select a range of frames, Shift-click

the  rst and last frame in the range; or

with no frames selected, click and drag

through the range of frames.