The workspace in Flash consists of a variety of panels. The panels can be arranged in various ways, depending on the kind of project you’re working on and the environment you’re comfortable with. Four essential panels will almost always be visible: the Tools panel, the timeline, the stage, and Properties (formerly called the Properties Inspector). Although these panels have the same functions that they did in earlier versions of Flash, their appearance and layout have changed noticeably in Flash CS4 (Figure 2a).

Figure 2a. These are the four most important panels in the Flash CS4 user interface, shown in their default layout.

The Tools panel contains the tools you’ll need to create and edit the visual elements of a Flash movie. You can roll your pointer over each tool to find out the name of that tool and the keyboard shortcut that you can use to select it. A tiny, black triangle to the lower right of a tool indicates that there are other tools hidden beneath it. To see them, press and hold your mouse pointer over the currently visible tool.

The timeline is where you map out how the elements of your movie change over time. Above it is the stage, where you create, edit, and arrange the shapes, images, video clips, and elements that make up the visual portion of your movie.

Whenever you need to change options or settings for tools, frames, or an entire movie, the Properties panel is where you do it. This panel is context-sensitive, meaning that it displays different information depending on where on the screen you’ve most recently clicked the mouse (Figure 2b).

Figure 2b. The changing face of the Properties panel: on the left, it displays information about the entire movie; on the right, it displays information about a single frame.

Smaller panels are usually fastened together in a rectangular container called a dock. Docked panels can be expanded or collapsed by clicking the medium-gray bar at the top of each panel (Figure 2c). By clicking the dark-gray bar at the top of any dock, you can reduce all the panels in that dock to icons.

Figure 2c. Docked panels may be collapsed (e.g., the Transform panel) or expanded (e.g., the Swatches panel).

If you need a panel that’s not currently available, you can choose its name from the Window menu. If the panel was in a dock the last time it was closed, it will reappear in that dock. Otherwise, it will appear in a free-floating window. You can grab the panel by the dark bar at the top (Figure 2d.) and drag it toward an existing dock.

Figure 2d. A floating window being dragged toward a dock

As you near the dock, a vertical blue line appears. If you drop the panel now, it will park itself in a new dock adjacent to the old one. If you continue to drag the panel onto an existing dock, one or more horizontal blue lines will appear. Each line shows where in the stack the dragged panel would land if you were to drop it immediately (Figure 2e).

Figure 2e. The window from 2d, about to be dropped into an existing dock.

Any combination or arrangement of panels is referred to as a workspace. When you first launch Flash, its default workspace (shown in Figure 2a) is rather minimal, so you’re likely to want to modify it. As you work with Flash, you may find that there are certain panels you want to have available all the time, or that a certain layout feels most comfortable. If you develop a workspace that you’re fond of, you can save it by choosing Window > Workspace > Save Current.

At any time, you can retrieve that saved workspace by choosing it from the Window > Workspace menu. Flash comes with several predefined workspaces already available on that menu (Figure 2f).

Figure 2f The predefined Designer workspace makes the Color and Transform panels readily available.

When you create a new, blank Flash movie, the first thing you’ll want to do is to set the Document Properties—a collection of fundamental settings that affect the entire movie. To set these properties, choose Document from the Modify menu to open the Document Properties dialog box (Figure 3a). The most important properties to set are Dimensions, Background Color, Frame Rate, and Ruler Units.

Figure 3a The Document Properties dialog box with its default settings.

Dimensions. This property determines the height and width of the stage. Since most Flash movies are designed to be viewed onscreen, it’s common practice to specify movie dimensions in pixels rather than in print-oriented units such as inches or points.

The default dimensions of 550 by 400 pixels are arbitrary. Make your movie’s dimensions as large or as small as are appropriate for your project. The only time you’ll need to pay special attention to the dimensions is when you’re using Flash to produce animation for video. In this case, the video editing program will specify what the dimensions of the movie should be—typically 1920 by 1080 pixels for high-definition video.

There are two shortcuts, represented by the radio buttons to the right of the Match label. (The third button resets the default dimensions.) Printer sets the movie’s dimensions to match the printable area of your currently selected printer, and Contents makes the movie’s dimensions match the dimensions of whatever’s on the stage. Think carefully before you make your selection. Although it’s simple to change the dimensions later, it’s much more difficult to modify your movie to fit the new settings.

Background Color. This property determines what color the stage will be. Whatever color you choose will show through on all unoccupied areas of the stage. For information on choosing a color, see #8.

Frame Rate. Frame rate, which is discussed in detail in #31, is a measure of how fast your movie progresses. For now, it’s enough to know that 12 to 15 frames per second (fps) is typical for Flash movies that are posted on the Web, and that 30 fps is standard for animation used in video. The default frame rate in Flash CS4 is 24 fps.

Ruler Units. This property doesn’t affect the movie, but only affects how the movie and its contents are measured in Flash. If you’ve specified the movie’s dimensions in pixels, it’s usually good to set ruler units to pixels as well.

If you want to make these new document properties the default settings for future movies, click the Make Default button on the lower left of the dialog box.

Because creating a Flash movie can be time-consuming, it’s helpful to find ways to speed the process. One of the best ways is to master the built-in keyboard shortcuts that let you execute Flash commands with a single keystroke instead of having to choose each one from a menu.

The most common Flash tasks can be accomplished using function keys (those keys at the top of your keyboard labeled F1, F2, and so on). There are several function keys—F5, F6, and F7, for example—that are vital for creating animation and therefore should become a part of your vocabulary. (The specific uses of these keys are explained in Chapter 5, “Creating Basic Animation.”)

Using the function keys in Flash is often a problem for Mac users. Mac OS X reserves some function keys for its own use, and those keys don’t work properly in Flash. The most commonly affected keys are F9 through F12, which the operating system uses to control Apple features such as Dashboard and Exposé. This is especially frustrating in the case of the F9 key, which in Flash is used to open some commonly used panels.

There are two ways to get around this problem. The first is to navigate to Mac’s System Preferences and remap the Dashboard and Exposé features to a different set of keystrokes. The second is to go into Flash and remap its F9 through F12 features. Since this is a book about Flash, not the Mac operating system, we’ll look at the second alternative.

To remap keyboard shortcuts in Flash:

Flash is capable of saving and exporting a number of different file types, including QuickTime movie files, animated GIF files, projector files, and more. No matter which sort of work you’re doing in Flash, there are two types of files you’ll always use: FLA, usually pronounced flah, and SWF, usually pronounced swiff (Figure 5a).

Figure 5a FLA files and SWF files can be recognized by their icons. The icon for a FLA file is on the left; that for a SWF file is on the right.

FLA is a proprietary Flash authoring file format. A FLA file contains all the information Flash needs to create and modify your movie: vector shapes, symbols, uncompressed images and sounds, timeline information, text, uncompiled ActionScript code, and so on. For this reason, FLA files tend to be large, sometimes in the hundreds of megabytes.

To generate a FLA file, you open or create a movie in Flash and then choose File > Save (or File > Save As). The only way to view or edit a FLA file is to open it in Flash.

SWF is the Flash Player file format. All information not needed to display your movie has been stripped out of it, and the remaining information is highly compressed. Therefore, a FLA file of many megabytes may yield a SWF file of only a few kilobytes. Although the size of the FLA file doesn’t matter (as long as it fits on your hard drive!), your goal in creating a Flash movie should always be to end up with as small a SWF file as possible. You’ll learn some tricks for decreasing the size of SWF files in Chapter 2, “Using the Drawing Tools.”

You generate a SWF file by opening a FLA file in Flash and either testing the movie (see #35) or publishing the movie (see #78). To modify a SWF file, you’ll have to open its corresponding FLA file in Flash, make your changes, and generate a new SWF file to replace the old one. With some minor exceptions, SWF files can’t be edited; they can only be played.

SWF is an open format: Although it originated with Flash, many programs other than Flash can create SWF files, and some non-Adobe programs can play them.

To include Flash movies on a Web site, you upload SWF files. FLA files are strictly for your own use (Figure 5b).

Figure 5b When a Flash movie appears on a web page, what you’re seeing is a SWF file, not a FLA file.

As with all computer data, you should save your FLA files frequently while you’re working on them. Saving SWF files isn’t nearly as important; you can always generate a new SWF file from a working FLA file.

Instead of choosing File > Save each time you save your FLA file, it’s a much better idea to choose File > Save As, and give each new version of the file an incremental name (for example, mymovie01.fla, mymovie02. fla, and so on). By doing so, you’ll avoid overwriting earlier versions of your files, and you’ll have a variety of different stages of development to which you can return if you become dissatisfied with the current version of your movie.

Because Flash projects almost always comprise multiple files, good file management is essential. Flash includes a Project panel that allows you to handle basic file-management tasks, such as creating and deleting files, and organizing files into folders, without leaving the Flash environment (Figure 5c). To open this panel, choose Window > Other Panels > Project.

Figure 5c The Project panel makes file management easier.