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Flash CS3: The Missing Manual
book

Flash CS3: The Missing Manual

by E. A. Vander Veer, Chris Grover
May 2007
Beginner content levelBeginner
530 pages
16h 16m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Flash CS3: The Missing Manual

A Tour of the Flash Desktop

Even though it has more controls and gizmos than a jumbo-jet cockpit, don't let Flash's interface intimidate you. Each toolbar and panel plays a part in the life of an animation, and most are designed to give you, the animator, full and flexible control over your creation. Once you know why and how to use each type of control, all becomes clear. That's what this section does.

Menu Bar

Running across the top of the Flash desktop (or the very top of your screen, if you're on a Mac), is the menu bar. The commands on these menus list every way you can interact with your Flash file, from creating a new file—as shown on Preparing to Draw—to editing it, saving it, and controlling how it appears on your screen.

Some of the menu names—File, Edit, View, Window, and Help—are familiar to anyone who's used a PC or Mac. Using these menu choices, you can perform basic tasks such as opening, saving, and printing your Flash files; cutting and pasting sections of your drawing; viewing your drawing in different ways; choosing which toolbars to view; getting help; and more.

To view a menu, simply click the menu's title to open it and then click a menu option. On a Mac, you can also drag down to the option you want. Let go of the mouse button to activate the option. Figure 1-3 shows you what the File menu looks like.

Several of the options on each menu include keystroke shortcuts that let you perform an action without having to mouse all the way up to the menu and click it. For example, instead of selecting File → Save As, you can press Ctrl+Shift+S to tell Flash to save the file you have open. On the Mac, the keystroke is Shift-⌘-S.

Figure 1-3. Several of the options on each menu include keystroke ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596510442Supplemental ContentErrata Page