Flash 8 Cookbook

4.9. Editing Many Frames Simultaneously

Problem

You want to edit the contents of more than one frame at the same time.

Solution

Use the Edit Multiple Frames option.

Discussion

In the default editing mode, Flash allows you to edit the contents of only one frame at a time. However, there are cases in which you may need to edit the contents of more than one frame at the same time. For example, if you change the dimensions of your Flash document after having already created much of the animation, you may want to change the coordinates as well as the scale of the contents across the frames of the main timeline. You could certainly go through, frame by frame, making the changes one at a time. But that could be a very time-consuming and tedious process. Fortunately, Flash provides you with a means by which you can make those changes at once using the Edit Multiple Frames feature.

You can activate the Edit Multiple Frames feature by selecting the button in the timeline (see Figure 4-4). When you have toggled on the feature, you will see the range markers appear in the timeline in line with the frame numbers. You can drag the markers to modify the range. Flash will display the contents across the frames within the range on the stage at the same time, though unlike with onion skinning, here only keyframe contents are displayed (tween states are not rendered). You can select any element from any unlocked and visible layer within the range.

See Also

Recipe 4.8