Flash 8 Cookbook

3.10. Customizing the Display of Layers and Frames

Problem

Frames and layers in the timeline are too big, require excessive scrolling, and take up too much screen space, or are too small, making it hard to see their contents.

Solution

Change the height of the layers and the width of the frames, as needed.

Discussion

The timeline is capable of displaying considerable information about a movie, its structure, and its contents. It is also used for selecting movie elements and specifying where to insert new elements. Unfortunately, you might feel that the timeline, layers, and/or frames are working against you. For example, you might have so many layers that you are either forced to scroll up and down through the layer stack constantly, or the layer stack might take up an unacceptable amount of screen space. Or your movie might have so many frames that you spend all your time scrolling left and right trying to find a given section.

Before simply adjusting the way in which Flash displays the timeline, it’s a good idea to evaluate whether there might be some more basic things you can do to make the timeline easier to work with. If you’re used to working with graphics programs, such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, you may be trying to apply your workflow from those programs to Flash. However, it’s worth noting that Flash uses a unique paradigm, and just because something works in Photoshop or Illustrator, that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do something in Flash. If timelines in Flash ...