Flash CS3: The Missing Manual

Reversing a Series of Frames

Reversing a series of frames is a useful effect. A basketball bouncing up and down, a flag waving side to side, or a boomerang advancing and receding: These things are all examples of reversing a single series of frames.

DESIGN TIME: Power to the People

One of the beefs some people have with Flash is that the Flash Player embedded in Internet Explorer (and other Web browsers) doesn't automatically show Play, Stop, Rewind, and Pause buttons. So unlike watching an animation play in, say, Windows Media Player, your audience has no control over Flash animation playback—unless you give it to them by creating interactive (object-based) scripts, which you should get into the habit of doing.

Theoretically, your audience can view a context menu that lets them interact with your animation by right-clicking your animation if they're running Windows, and Control-clicking your animation if they're running Mac. But because few audience members know this—and because Flash gurus who also happen to be expert ActionScript coders can modify, rearrange, add to, and delete menu options—context menus aren't particularly useful when it comes to providing consistent playback control.

Giving your audience as much control as possible is always a good idea, but it's crucial if you're planning to put your Flash animation on the Web. You can't possibly know your Web audience's hardware configuration.

Say, for example, you create a splash page animation with a Stage size of 550 x 400 ...