Flash CS3: The Missing Manual

Adding a Prebuilt Behavior

Adding a behavior in Flash is similar to adding an action: In both cases, you add ActionScript code to the Actions panel. But in the case of adding an action, you have to type the ActionScript code; when you add a behavior to your animation, Flash types the code for you.

Figure 9-7. Top: Smiley as he first appears, before you move your mouse over his left squinched-up eye. Bottom: Because Smiley's left eye is a button symbol, mousing over it tells Flash to turn your arrow cursor into a pointing finger. Clicking Smiley's left eye lets you drag Smiley around the test window. He stays where you drop him (until you click his left eye and drag him again).

Adding a behavior actually requires a few more steps and clicks than it would take an experienced scripter to type a quick ActionScript from scratch. But behaviors let you reap the benefits of ActionScript without learning anything about scripting.

Flash includes only a couple dozen behaviors, one of which does the same thing as the ActionScript described in the previous section.

UP TO SPEED: Help for Learning ActionScript

In addition to showing you how to add prebuilt actions called behaviors to your animations, this book gives you working examples of other useful and popular ActionScript actions (including online versions you can download and play with when you get a chance).

So for a lot of the animations you'll ...