Digital Classroom

Adobe® Flash®
Professional CS6
Digital
Classroom
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Adobe® Flash®
Professional CS6
Digital
Classroom
Fred Gerantabee and the AGI Creative Team
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Adobe® Flash® Professional CS6 Digital Classroom
Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
10475 Crosspoint Blvd.
Indianapolis, IN 46256
Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
ISBN: 978-1-118-12408-6
Manufactured in the United States of America
10987654321
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About the Authors
Fred Gerantabee is an award winning interactive designer, web developer and author based in New
York City. He is a subject matter expert in Flash and ActionScript, standards-based web development
and various scripting languages and platforms. Fred has worked with the AGI team for several years as
a contributor to the Digital Classroom series, training events and currently leads the technology initiatives at Grey Worldwide in NYC. Fred is the author of several books in the Digital Classroom series on
Flash and Dreamweaver, and co-author with AGI instructors Jennifer Smith and Christopher Smith of
the Creative Suite 6 Design Premium for Dummies, also published by Wiley.
Greg Heald has 20 years of design and production experience in both Web and print environments.
He has served as a contributing author or editor on a number of books on Dreamweaver, Flash,
InDesign, and Acrobat. Greg has contributed to the development of Adobe’s certification exams, and
as Training Manager for American Graphics Institute, he oversees the delivery of professional development training programs for individuals and organizations. Greg holds a degree in Advertising Design
from the acclaimed College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University.
Jeremy Osborn is the Content Director at American Graphics Institute. He has more than 15 years of
experience in web and graphic design, filmmaking, writing, and publication development for both
print and digital media. He has contributed to several of the Digital Classroom book series. Jeremy
holds a MS in Management from the Marlboro College Graduate Center and a BFA in Film/TV from the
Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.
The AGI Creative Team is composed of Adobe Certified Experts and experienced instructors from
American Graphics Institute (AGI). The AGI Creative Team has authored more than 25 Digital Classroom
books, and previously created many of Adobe’s official training guides. They work with many of the
world’s most prominent companies, helping them use creative software to communicate more effectively and creatively. They work with design, creative, and marketing teams around the world, delivering private customized training programs, and teach regularly scheduled classes at AGI’s locations. The
Digital Classroom authors are available for professional development sessions at companies, schools
and universities. More information at agitraining.com.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to our many friends at Adobe Systems, Inc. who made this book possible and assisted with
questions and feedback during the writing process. To the many clients of AGI who have helped us
better understand how they use Flash and provided us with many of the tips and suggestions found
in this book. A special thanks to the instructional team at AGI for their input and assistance in the
review process and for making this book such a team effort.
Thanks to the following photographers for the use of their images: Lesson 12: Shayna Zaid & The
Catch photo by Jamie Santamour; Leslie Graves photo by Calvin Williams; Christopher Heinz photo by
Calvin Williams; Shayna Zaid photo by William Kates; Oscar Rodriguez/Nakatomi Plaza photo by Dave
Sanders; Emek Rave photo by Holly Danger..
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Credits
Additional Writing
Greg Heald, Jeremy Osborn
President, American Graphics Institute and
Digital Classroom Series Publisher
Christopher Smith
Vice President and Executive Group
Publisher
Richard Swadley
Vice President and Executive Publisher
Barry Pruett
Executive Editor
Jody Lefevere
Senior Project Coordinator
Katherine Crocker
Technical Editors
Sean McKnight, Haziel Olivera
Project Manager
Cheri White
Editor
Karla E. Melendez
Graphics and Production Specialist
Jason Miranda, Spoke & Wheel
Editorial Director
Robyn Siesky
Media Development Project Supervisor
Chris Leavey
Business Manager
Amy Knies
Proofreading
Jay Donahue, Barn Owl Publishing
Senior Marketing Manager
Sandy Smith
Indexing
Michael Ferreira
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Contents
Starting up
About Flash Digital Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Starting Adobe Flash Professional CS6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Resetting the Flash workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Loading lesson files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Working with the video tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Setting up for viewing the video tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Viewing the video tutorials with
the Adobe Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Hosting Your Flash content and websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Additional resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Lesson 1: Flash CS6 Jumpstart
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
What is Flash? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
About Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Flash file types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Creating a new document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Setting up your new document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Saving your Flash document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Opening documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
The Flash workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
The Stage and work area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
The Flash Tools panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Property Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Panels and panel groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
The Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Practicing with the Flash tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
The drawing and selection tools in action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Using gradient and color tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Animation in action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Getting help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
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Contents
Support forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Moving forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Lesson 2: Getting Started with the Drawing Tools
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Drawing in Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Using the Merge Drawing mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Creating artwork in Merged Drawing mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Working with Drawing Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Putting it all together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Using the Line tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Using the Pen tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Using the Add and Delete Anchor Point tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Using the Combine Objects menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Using the Primitive tools (Smart Shapes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Using the Oval Primitive tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
The Rectangle Primitive tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Adding text to your artwork. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Flash Text: TLF & Classic Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Working with Threaded and Multi-Column Text . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Adding filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Working with colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Getting set up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Creating gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Using opacity with gradient colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Creating custom colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Saving a custom color set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Organizing and layering graphics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Working with layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Arranging, locking, and hiding layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Creating layer folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
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Contents
Transforming graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
The Transform menu and Free Transform tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
The Transform panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Transforming gradients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Lesson 3: Using Symbols and the Library
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
What are symbols? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
A look at the Library panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Creating symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Converting a graphic to a symbol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Creating blank symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Building artwork with symbol instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Positioning and snapping in symbol instances . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Editing and duplicating symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Editing symbols in place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Modifying individual symbol instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Modifying instance color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Fine-tuning your background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Duplicating symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Adding graphics and text to your banner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Swapping symbols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Managing the Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Organizing symbols with folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
The Move To command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Deleting items from the library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Controlling library views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Wrapping up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Contents
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Lesson 4: Advanced Tools
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Working with gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Adjusting gradients with the Gradient Transform tool . . 135
Flash CS6 tools for advanced drawing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Spraying symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Masking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Introducing the Deco tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Advanced Deco tool techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
The Deco Tool’s new options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Introduction to IK tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Lesson 5: Creating Basic Animation
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Introducing keyframes and the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Frames and keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Building animation: Enter the tween . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Tween layers and automatic keyframing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Tweening multiple objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Previewing animation with Test Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Moving and transforming tween paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Incorporating color effects and scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Introducing the Motion Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Modifying the animation using the Motion Editor . . . . . . . 166
Tweening rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Controlling animation paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Where did Motion Guide layers go? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
What happens to my existing Flash files that use
Motion Guide layers? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
How do I create a motion guide if I still want to? . . . . . . . . . 174
Morphing graphics and colors with shape tweens . . . . . . . 174
Shape tween basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Legacy techniques: Creating classic tweens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
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Classic tween rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Adding color effects and scaling to a classic tween . . . . . . 181
(Re)creating motion guides for classic tweens . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Troubleshooting Motion Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Adjusting animation with onion skinning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Looking ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Lesson 6: Advanced Animation
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Copying, pasting, and saving animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Using Copy and Paste Motion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Creating Motion Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Applying Advanced Easing Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Animating Masks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Creating Animation with IK Poses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Sequencing Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Shifting, Moving, and Extending Tween Spans . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Rendering and Animating in 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
The 3D Rotation tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
The 3D Translation tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Fine-Tuning tweens with the Motion Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Adding shape tweens and shape hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Creating Shape Hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Lesson 7: Customizing Your Workflow
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Customizing workspace layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Opening the completed file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Working with panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Collapsing and storing panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Managing workspaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Setting preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
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Keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Visual aids for alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Rulers and guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Guide layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Advanced alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Refining your aligned objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Lesson 8: Working with Imported Files
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
Import formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Importing still images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Viewing the completed lesson file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Import a bitmap image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Adding text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Swapping out an imported file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Modifying imported artwork. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Updating imported files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Importing Photoshop files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Importing a layered Photoshop file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Importing Illustrator artwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
Animating the bat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Lesson 9: Introducing ActionScript
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Exploring the lesson file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
What is ActionScript? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Which version of ActionScript should you use? . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Where Do I Place ActionScript? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
The Code Snippets Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
An important note about Publish settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
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The Actions panel at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Standard (default) script editing mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Using Script Assist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Adding and removing actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Adding actions to frames with
the Code Snippets Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Adding a stop() action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Placing a goto action using the Actions Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Controlling Movie Clip Timelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
Wrapping up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Lesson 10: Creating Navigation Controls
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Working with button symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Building buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
Adding text to a button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Duplicating and modifying buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Creating text-based buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Creating frame labels for ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Adding ActionScript: Events and event handlers . . . . . . . . . 315
Understanding events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Responding to events with event handlers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Tying it all together with event listeners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Linking buttons to specific frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Adding an event listener to a button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Linking buttons to a website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Introducing navigateToURL() and
URLRequest(). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
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Lesson 11: Adding Sound to Your Movies
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Preparing sound files for Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Sample rate and bit depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
Editing your audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Mono or stereo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Audio file formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Importing sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Placing sounds on the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Adding sound to your slide show project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Adding the remaining narration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Adding sound effects to buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Placing Event sounds on button frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
Editing sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Trimming sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
Controlling sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Repeating and looping sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
Looping sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Introducing the SoundMixer and stopAll() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
More sync menu controls: stop and start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Start sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Stop sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Sound publishing options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Wrapping up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Lesson 12: Introducing Movie Clips
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
About movie clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Creating movie clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Laying the foundation: Your first movie clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Previewing movie clip animation from the
main Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Creating the landing gear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
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Combining movie clips and main Timeline
animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Nesting movie clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Adding ActionScript to movie clip Timelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Controlling movie clip playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Adding some variation to the propellers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Tweening movie clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Adding a second tween . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Combining movie clips for complex animation . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Adding filter effects to movie clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Using the Filters panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Creating a filter effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Wrapping up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Lesson 13: Working with Video
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Video in Flash: formats and fundamentals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
Understanding video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Embedded versus linked video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Flash Video formats: FLV and F4V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Understanding codecs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Understanding Adobe Media Encoder CS6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Converting video with the Adobe Media Encoder . . . . . . . . 392
Working with embedded video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Adding embedded video to the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
Building controls for embedded video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
The Bandwidth Profiler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Working with linked video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Adding cue points in the Adobe Media Encoder . . . . . . . . . . 402
Adding linked video to the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Live Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Adding Cue Points in the Property Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
Working with the FLVPlayback component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
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Lesson 14: Delivering Your Final Movie
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
The publishing process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
Publishing to the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412
Customizing the Publish settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Publishing for the Desktop with Adobe AIR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
About Digital Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Installing Your New AIR Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424
Publishing for Mobile Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
Publishing for iOS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
Publishing for Android OS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428
Using Export Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
New: Export PNG Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
An overview of FTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
Self study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Lesson 15: What’s New in Adobe Flash CS6?
Starting up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Expanded Publishing and Support for iOS and
Android Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
A little ruler goes a long way: Integrated Ruler
on TLF text boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
New AIR and Mobile Code Snippets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439
Convenience Features: Auto-Save and File Recovery
plus Scale Content with Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
PNG Sequence Export. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Bitmap Editing with Adobe Photoshop CS6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
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Starting up
About the Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom
Adobe® Flash® Professional CS6 is used to create and deliver interactive content. Adobe
Flash Professional CS6 is the authoring environment for creating rich, interactive content
and advertisements for digital, web delivery.
The Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom helps you to understand these capabilities
and to get the most out of your software so that you can get up-and-running right away.
You can work through all the lessons in this book, or complete only specific lessons.
Each lesson includes detailed, step-by-step instructions, along with lesson fi les, useful
background information, and video tutorials.
Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom is like having your own expert instructor
guiding you through each lesson while you work at your own pace. This book includes 15
self-paced lessons that let you discover essential skills, explore new ones, and understand
capabilities that will save you time. You’ll be productive right away with real-world
exercises and simple explanations. Each lesson includes step-by-step instructions, lesson
fi les, and video tutorials, all of which are available on the included DVD. The Flash
Professional CS6 Digital Classroom lessons are developed by the same team of Adobe
Certified Experts and Flash professionals who have created many of the official training
titles for Adobe Systems.
Prerequisites
Before you start the Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom lessons, you should have
a working knowledge of your computer and its operating system. You should know how
to use the directory system of your computer so that you can navigate through folders.
You also need to understand how to locate, save, and open fi les, and you should also know
how to use your mouse to access menus and commands.
Before starting the lesson fi les in the Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom, make
sure that you have installed Adobe Flash Professional CS6. The software is sold separately,
and is not included with this book. You may use the free 30-day trial version of Adobe
Flash Professional CS6 available at the adobe.com website, subject to the terms of its license
agreement.
System requirements
Before starting the lessons in the Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom, make
sure that your computer is equipped for running Adobe Flash Professional CS6, which
you must purchase separately. The minimum system requirements for your computer to
effectively use the software are listed on the following page and you can fi nd the most
current system requirements at http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/tech-specs.html.
Starting Up
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Prerequisites
Windows
• Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon® 64 processor
• Microsoft ® Windows® XP with Service Pack 3 or Windows 7
• 2 GB of RAM (3 GB recommended)
• 3.5 GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during
installation (cannot install on removable flash-based storage devices)
• 1024×768 display (1280×800 recommended)
• Java™ Runtime Environment 1.6 (included)
• DVD-ROM drive
• QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for multimedia features
• Some features in Adobe Bridge rely on a DirectX 9–capable graphics card with at least
64 MB of VRAM
• Broadband Internet connection required for online services
Mac OS
• Multicore Intel processor
• Mac OS X v10.6 or v10.7
• 2 GB of RAM (3 GB recommended)
• 4 GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during
installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive fi le system or on
removable flash-based storage devices)
• 1024×768 display (1280×800 recommended)
• Java Runtime Environment 1.6
• DVD-ROM drive
• QuickTime 7.6.6 software required for multimedia features
• Broadband Internet connection required for online services
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Resetting the Flash workspace
Starting Adobe Flash Professional CS6
As with most software, Adobe Flash Professional CS6 is launched by locating the
application in your Programs folder (Windows) or Applications folder (Mac OS). If you
are not familiar with starting the program, follow these steps to start the Adobe Flash
Professional CS6 application:
Windows
1
Choose Start > All Programs > Adobe Flash Professional CS6.
2
Close the Welcome Screen when it appears. You are now ready to use Adobe Flash
Professional CS6.
Mac OS
1
Open the Applications folder, and then open the Adobe Flash CS6 folder.
2
Double-click on the Adobe Flash CS6 application icon.
3
Close the Welcome Screen when it appears. You are now ready to use Adobe Flash
Professional CS6.
Menus and commands are identified throughout the book by using the greater-than symbol (>).
For example, the command to print a document appears as File > Print.
Access lesson files and videos any time
Register your book at www.digitalclassroombooks.com/CS6/Flash to gain access to your lesson
fi les on any computer you own or watch the videos on your Internet-connected computer,
tablet, or mobile device. You’ll be able to continue your learning anywhere you have an
Internet connection and a device that supports playing online video. This provides you
access to lesson fi les and videos even if you misplaced your DVD.
Checking for updated lesson files
Make sure you have the most up-to-date lesson fi les and learn about any updates
to your Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom book by registering your book at
www.digitalclassroombooks.com/CS6/Flash.
Resetting the Flash workspace
To make certain that your panels and working environment are consistent, you should
reset your workspace at the start of each lesson. To reset your workspace, choose
Window > Workspace > Reset ‘Essentials.’
Starting Up
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Loading lesson files
Loading lesson files
The Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom DVD includes fi les that accompany the
exercises for each of the lessons. You may copy the entire lessons folder from the supplied
DVD to your hard drive, or copy only the lesson folders for the individual lessons you
wish to complete.
For each lesson in the book, the fi les are referenced by the name of each fi le. The exact
location of each fi le on your computer is not used, as you may have placed the fi les in
a unique location on your hard drive. We suggest placing the lesson fi les in the My
Documents folder (Windows) or at the top level of your hard drive (Mac OS), or on your
desktop for easy access.
Copying the lesson files to your hard drive:
1
Insert the Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom DVD supplied with this book.
2
On your computer desktop, navigate to the DVD and locate the folder named
fl lessons.
3
You can install all the fi les, or just specific lesson fi les. Do one of the following:
• Install all lesson fi les by dragging the fl lessons folder to your hard drive.
• Install only some of the fi les by creating a new folder on your hard drive named
fl lessons. Open the fl lessons folder on the supplied DVD, select the lesson you wish to
complete, and drag the folder(s) to the fl lessons folder you created on your hard drive.
Unlocking Mac OS files
Mac users may need to unlock the files after they are copied from the accompanying disc.
This applies only to Mac OS computers, and is because the Mac OS may view files that are
copied from a DVD or CD as being locked for writing.
If you are a Mac OS user and have difficulty saving over the existing files in this book, you
can use these instructions so that you can update the lesson files as you work on them, and
also add new files to the lessons folder
Note that you only need to follow these instructions if you are unable to save over the
existing lesson files, or if you are unable to save files into the lesson folder.
4
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1
After copying the fi les to your computer, click once to select the fl lessons folder, then
choose File > Get Info from within the Finder (not Flash).
2
In the fl lessons info window, click the triangle to the left of Sharing and Permissions to
reveal the details of this section.
3
In the Sharing and Permissions section, click the lock icon, if necessary, in the lowerright corner so that you can make changes to the permissions.
4
Click to select a specific user or select everyone, then change the Privileges section to
Read & Write.
5
Click the lock icon to prevent further changes, and then close the window.
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Working with the video tutorials
Working with the video tutorials
Your Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom DVD comes with video tutorials
developed by the authors to help you understand the concepts explored in each lesson.
Each tutorial is approximately five minutes long and demonstrates and explains the
concepts and features covered in the lesson.
The videos are designed to supplement your understanding of the material in the chapter.
We have selected exercises and examples that we feel will be most useful to you. You may
want to view the entire video for each lesson before you begin that lesson. Additionally, at
certain points in a lesson, you will encounter the DVD icon. The icon, with appropriate
lesson number, indicates that an overview of the exercise being described can be found in
the accompanying video.
0
DVD video icon.
Setting up for viewing the video tutorials
The DVD included with this book includes video tutorials for each lesson. Although you
can view the lessons on your computer directly from the DVD, we recommend copying
the folder labeled videos from the Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom DVD to
your hard drive.
Copying the video tutorials to your hard drive:
1
Insert the Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom DVD supplied with this book.
2
On your computer desktop, navigate to the DVD and locate the folder named videos.
3
Drag the videos folder to a location onto your hard drive.
Viewing the video tutorials with the Adobe Flash Player
The videos on the Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Digital Classroom DVD are saved in the
Flash projector format. A Flash projector fi le wraps the Digital Classroom video player
and the Adobe Flash Player in an executable fi le (.exe for Windows or .app for Mac OS).
Note that the extension (on both platforms) may not always be visible. Projector fi les allow
the Flash content to be deployed on your system without the need for a browser or prior
stand-alone player installation.
Starting Up
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Hosting Your Flash content and websites
Playing the video tutorials:
1
On your computer, navigate to the videos folder you copied to your hard drive from
the DVD. Playing the videos directly from the DVD may result in poor quality
playback.
2
Open the videos folder and double-click the Flash fi le named PLAY_FLCS6videos to
view the video tutorials.
3
After the Flash player launches, press the Play button to view the videos.
The Flash Player has a simple user interface that allows you to control the viewing
experience, including stopping, pausing, playing, and restarting the video. You can
also rewind or fast-forward, and adjust the playback volume.
A
B
C
D
E
F
A. Go to beginning. B. Play/Pause. C. Fast-forward/rewind. D. Stop. E. Volume Off/On. F. Volume control.
Playback volume is also affected by the settings in your operating system. Be certain to adjust the
sound volume for your computer, in addition to the sound controls in the Player window.
Hosting Your Flash content and websites
While you can work on everything in this book using only your computer, you will
eventually want to post your Flash content to the Web and create sites to share with the
world. To do this, you will need to place your website fi les on a web server, which is a
computer that is persistently connected to the Internet and designed to handle multiple
users at once.
If you don’t want to get involved in hosting a website, there are a number of cost-efficient,
web hosting services such as GoDaddy, FatCow, and Blue Host as well large, scalable
cloud service providers such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon EC2. If you want to set up
your own computer for hosting a web server on your own, and you are using a Windows
computer, you can turn it into a web server at no cost by using the Web Platform Installer
available at: www.microsoft.com/web. If you are a Mac OS user, you can get Mac OS X server
from Apple to set up a Mac computer as a web server.
If you are just getting started, you may not need to worry about web hosting just yet. But
you’ll fi nd this information useful once you start creating sites and content as you progress
through this book.
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Additional resources
Additional resources
The Digital Classroom series goes beyond the training books. You can continue your learning
online, with training videos, at seminars and conferences, and in-person training events.
Training from the Authors
The authors are available for professional development training workshops for schools
and companies. They also teach classes at American Graphics Institute including training
classes and online workshops. Visit agitraining.com for more information about Digital
Classroom author-led training classes or workshops.
Book series
Expand your knowledge of creative software applications with the Digital Classroom
training series. Books are available for most creative software applications as well as web
design and development tools and technologies. Learn more at DigitalClassroom.com.
Seminars and conferences
The authors of the Digital Classroom seminar series frequently conduct in-person
seminars and speak at conferences, including the annual CRE8 Conference. Learn more at
agitraining.com and CRE8summit.com.
Resources for educators
Visit digitalclassroombooks.com to request resources for educators, including instructors’
guides for incorporating Digital Classroom books into your curriculum.
Starting Up
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