Macromedia® Flash® 8: A Tutorial Guide

Macromedia® Flash® 8: A Tutorial Guide

Released October 2005
Publisher(s): Adobe Press
ISBN: 9780321394149

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Book description

This guide allows you to learn specific Flash skills step-by-step at your own pace. Choose from among several tutorials to develop the skills that are most appropriate to the Flash projects you are working on at any given time. Each lesson leads you through the workflow for implementing a specific real-world feature or effect in your Flash applications.

In Macromedia Flash 8: A Tutorial Guide, learn how to:
•    Navigate the Flash workspace and use common document types
•    Use the Flash drawing tools and create engaging graphic effects
•    Use ActionScript to add interactivity and custom functionality to your documents
•    Connect your Flash projects to external data sources to create data-driven applications

Powerful development and design tools require thorough and authoritative technical advice and documentation. When it comes to Macromedia Flash, no one is more authoritative than Macromedia’s own development and writing teams. Now their official documentation is available to you in printed book form. As you work, keep this guide by your side for ready access to valuable information on using Flash. We’ve designed it so that it’s easy to annotate as you progress.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
    1. Dedication
  2. Introduction
  3. 1. Basic Tasks: Create a Document
    1. Take a tour of the user interface
      1. Select panel sets and arrange panels
      2. Use tools to create Flash content
      3. Undo changes
      4. View the Timeline
    2. Change background and Stage size
    3. Change your view of the Stage
    4. View the Library panel
    5. Add graphics to the Stage
    6. Add video
    7. View object properties
    8. Add video control behaviors
    9. Use the Movie Explorer to view the document structure
    10. Test the document
    11. Find help
    12. Summary
  4. 2. Basic Tasks: Creating a banner, Part 1
    1. Examine the completed FLA file
      1. Open the finished FLA file
      2. Review the completed FLA file
      3. Close the completed FLA file
    2. Creating a new document
    3. Changing document properties
    4. Importing graphics
    5. Introducing layers and the timeline
      1. Creating a new layer
      2. Importing to a layer
    6. Test the application
    7. Summary
  5. 3. Basic Tasks: Creating a banner, Part 2
    1. Examine the completed FLA file
      1. Open the finished FLA file
      2. Review the completed FLA file
      3. Close the completed FLA file
    2. Adding text
    3. Creating a symbol
    4. Adding animation to a timeline
    5. Creating a button
    6. Writing simple actions
    7. Test the application
    8. Summary
  6. 4. Basic Tasks: Creating a banner, Part 3
    1. Examine the completed FLA file
      1. Open the finished project
      2. Review the completed project
      3. Close the completed project
    2. Considering your audience
    3. Checking your publish settings
    4. Inserting Flash on a Dreamweaver site
    5. Using roundtrip editing
    6. Checking for Flash Player
    7. Test the application
    8. Summary
  7. 5. Basic Tasks: Create Accessible Flash Content
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Make your document accessible to screen readers
    3. Provide a document title and description
    4. Provide a title and description for instances
    5. Specify that screen readers ignore elements in your document
    6. Change static text to dynamic text for accessibility
    7. Control the tab order and reading order
    8. About testing your document with screen readers
    9. Summary
  8. 6. Basic Tasks: Work with Layers
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Select a layer
    3. Hide and show layers
    4. Lock a layer
    5. Add and name a layer
    6. Change the order of layers
    7. Organize layers in a folder
    8. Add a mask layer
    9. Add a guide layer
    10. Delete a layer
    11. Summary
  9. 7. Basic Tasks: Create an Application
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Copy input and dynamic text fields
    3. Name text fields
    4. Add and name a Button component
    5. Declare variables and values for the prices
    6. Specify values for input text fields
    7. Write a function
    8. Write an event handler for the component
    9. Test your application
    10. Summary
  10. 8. Basic Tasks: Use Layout Tools
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Use guides to align an object
    3. Change the Stage size
    4. Resize objects to match the Stage size
    5. Specify snap alignment settings
    6. Align an object using the alignment guides
    7. Align objects using the Align panel
    8. Snap objects to each other
    9. Align objects using the Property inspector
    10. Align objects using the grid and arrow keys
    11. Summary
  11. 9. Basic Tasks: Create Symbols and Instances
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. About creating symbols
    3. Create a graphic symbol
    4. Duplicate and modify an instance of a symbol
    5. Modify a symbol
    6. Create a movie clip symbol
    7. Assign an instance name to the movie clip
    8. Add an effect to the movie clip
    9. Summary
  12. 10. Basic Tasks: Add Button Animation and Navigation
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Create a button from grouped objects
    3. Name a button instance
    4. View the hit area by enabling buttons
    5. Change the hit area of a button
    6. Align buttons
    7. Create animation for a button state
    8. Add an action to a button
    9. Add navigation to a button
    10. Test the SWF file
    11. Summary
  13. 11. Basic Tasks: Create a Presentation with Screens (Flash Professional Only)
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. View the screen hierarchy and screen Timelines
    3. View screen properties
    4. Add content to a presentation slide
    5. Add screen navigation behaviors to buttons
    6. Add and name a slide
    7. Select and move slides
    8. Add content to a new slide
    9. Add transition behaviors
    10. Test your presentation
    11. Summary
  14. 12. Creating Graphics: Draw in Flash
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Select a shape tool
    3. Select options to create a polygon
    4. Draw a polygon
    5. Rotate the shape
    6. Use the cutout feature
    7. Transform the shape of your drawing
    8. Copy strokes
    9. Draw with the Line tool
    10. Select and add a different fill color
    11. Group the shape
    12. Create a logo with the Pen tool
    13. Summary
  15. 13. Creating Graphics: Create a Timeline Animation
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Create a motion tween
    3. Create a shape tween
    4. Copy and paste keyframes in an animation
    5. Change the speed of the animation
      1. Change the frames per second speed
      2. Change the acceleration and deceleration
    6. Test the SWF file
    7. Summary
  16. 14. Creating Graphics: Making Animations with Easing (Flash Professional only)
    1. Examine the completed FLA file
      1. Open the authoring document
      2. Review the completed FLA file
        1. See the animation play in a separate window as a SWF file
        2. See the animation on the Stage in the Flash authoring environment
      3. Close the application
    2. Open the starter document
      1. Create a motion tween
      2. Add the necessary frames to the Timeline
      3. Create a motion tween in the new frames
      4. Use easing controls
        1. Ease in the eight-ball animation
        2. Ease out the eight-ball animation
        3. Add custom easing settings to the eight-ball tween
      5. Create a motion tween with an alpha setting
        1. Create the tween of the alpha value for the shadow
    3. Test the application
  17. 15. Creating Graphics: Applying Gradients
    1. Examine the completed FLA file
      1. Open the authoring document
      2. Review the completed FLA file
      3. Close the completed FLA file
    2. Open the starter document
    3. Apply a linear gradient
    4. Create a radial gradient
    5. Create a transform gradient with a shape
    6. Apply the finishing touches
      1. Apply a gradient to the white circle on the eight ball
      2. Apply a linear gradient to the highlight
    7. Test the application
  18. 16. Creating Graphics: Apply Graphic Filters and Blends (Flash Professional Only)
    1. Review your task
    2. Open the starter document
    3. Apply filters and blends
      1. Apply a blend to the 9ball movie clip
      2. Apply a filter
      3. Apply filters and blends to the cue ball
  19. 17. Text: Add Text to a Document
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Create an expanding-width text block
    3. Create a fixed-width text block
    4. Edit text and change font attributes
    5. Select device fonts
    6. Add an input text field
    7. Copy a text field
    8. Assign instance names to text fields
    9. Create a dynamic text field
    10. Specify format options
    11. View ActionScript for the dynamic text field
    12. Test the SWF file
    13. Check spelling
    14. Summary
  20. 18. ActionScript: Use Script Assist mode
    1. Examine the completed FLA file
      1. Open the authoring document
      2. Review the completed FLA file
      3. Close the completed FLA file
    2. Open the starter document
    3. Add a script to a button by using Script Assist mode
    4. Add frame scripts to the Timeline by using Script Assist mode
    5. Add a frame script to the Title movie clip
    6. Test the application
    7. Summary
  21. 19. ActionScript: Add Interactivity
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Name button instances
    3. Add a scene
    4. Move between scenes
    5. Control the document with a stop() action
    6. Link a button to a scene
    7. Add navigation to return to Scene 1
    8. Play a movie clip
      1. Use the attachMovie() method to play a movie clip
      2. Specify movie clip Stage coordinates
      3. Unload the movie clip
    9. Use a behavior to play an MP3 file
    10. Test your document
    11. Summary
  22. 20. ActionScript: Write Scripts
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Create an instance of a symbol
    3. Name button instances
    4. Initialize the document
    5. Apply ActionScript syntax
    6. Locate ActionScript reference documentation
    7. Add comments to ActionScript
    8. Write a function for a button
    9. Copy and modify a button function
    10. Check syntax and test your application
    11. Summary
  23. 21. ActionScript: Create a Form with Conditional Logic and Send Data
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Add an input text field to collect form data
    3. Add a Submit button to the form
    4. Add an error message
    5. Add a confirmation message
    6. Add a stop() action
    7. Add frame labels for navigation
    8. Add conditional logic for the Submit button
    9. Pass data out of a SWF file
    10. Write a function for the Try Again button
    11. Test your SWF file
    12. Summary
  24. 22. ActionScript: Work with Objects and Classes
    1. Set up your workspace
    2. Learn about classes and object types
    3. Create an object from a class
      1. Modify your script
    4. Create a custom class
      1. Specify the data type for method return values
      2. Build a custom class
    5. Create two objects from the Product class
    6. Learn about extending existing classes
    7. Extend the MovieClip class to create a new class
    8. Summary
  25. 23. Data Integration: Overview (Flash Professional Only)
  26. 24. Data Integration: Using the Macromedia Tips Web Service (Flash Professional Only)
    1. Connect to a public web service
    2. Create a user interface and bind the components with the web service
  27. 25. Data Integration: Using XML for a Timesheet (Flash Professional Only)
    1. Create the user interface
      1. Add XMLConnector and DataSet Components
      2. Add DataGrid and Button components
    2. Edit the data
  28. 26. Data Integration: Using XUpdate to Update the Timesheet (Flash Professional Only)
    1. Update the timesheet
  29. Official Product Documentation from Macromedia
  30. Training from the Source

Product information

  • Title: Macromedia® Flash® 8: A Tutorial Guide
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: October 2005
  • Publisher(s): Adobe Press
  • ISBN: 9780321394149