Subtitles of the Movie

Continuing with my overview of the Flash CS4 Workspace, we get now to all of the Panels and Windows that are accessible via the Window menu. Flash contains a lot of these Panels and every element seems to have its own Panel and they can make you kind of dizzy at first, there are so many of them. So let me take this opportunity to cover some of the most important and often used Panels in Windows starting with those that are attached over here to the Properties Inspector or Properties Panel here in Classic view. We have first the Color Panel and next to it the Swatches Panel. These are grouped together in the Classic Workspace view. If I select an object on the stage, and then open up my Color Panel so that I can adjust the color of that object by just clicking on the color wheel there, likewise with the next door neighbor there, the Swatches Panel, I can choose a color in the Swatch to affect that color change. Next, we have here the Align Panel, this is a very useful Panel. Notice that if I create a series of objects on the stage and then click on the Align Panel I can align everything so I can line everything up to the left. Go ahead and select the objects first, you need to do that first. Let's go ahead and line everything up so that they are even along the top and now they are even along the bottom, now they are even vertical alignment there. Left alignment. Let's go ahead and undo that so I can get my three objects back likewise. I can distribute these so that they are equidistance in the vertical dimension or horizontal direction as well. Notice that I have a To Stage option. This will align everything to the top of the stage or the bottom of the stage. If I turn that off, it's going to align things relative to each other. So let's go ahead. Notice that I lost my Ð stroke there because I didn't double click on the object. Let's go ahead now and align Ð relative to each other, align to the top. So this is one of those very useful Panels and tabs. It takes a little bit getting used to. Just get some objects on the stage and start messing around with the various options here. Next, we have the Library Window. Very important Panel here. Let's go ahead and move files. Here is a better file to demonstrate the Library Panel. I have all of my media assets, including gifs, Symbols, Button Symbols, Movie Clip Symbols, Graphic Symbols, audio files will be in here, video components will be in there as well. A lot more about the Library Window a little bit later in this tutorial. Next, another important Window is the Actions Panel or Actions Window. It contains all of your scripting including various portions and sections of the Actions Window. The Actions Pane is here to the left, the Script Pane is the big one over here to the right. There is another file here with a bit more ActionScripting so you can see the ActionScript here in the Script Pane a little bit better. Let's go ahead and close my Actions Window and get to the next Panel. That is the Information Panel. This will give you the width and height of a selected object as well as the X and Y coordinates relative to the upper left hand corner of the stage as well as the RGB value. So notice that as I move my cursor around, the X and Y values here change to give me the location of the cursor. These width and height values are the dimensions of the selected objects, so for example that blue star there is 63.8 pixels wide, 60 pixels high and there is its location. Notice if I mov this, the location coordinates change, the X and Y coordinates there. Next to that we have the Transform Window where I can Rotate, Skew, do a 3D Rotation or a 3D Center point adjustments. So notice that I have a little setting here that will Rotate or if I want to Skew I also have these settings to Skew that object like so. Convenient place to manipulate or transform objects. Next, is this one here. Library, which I have already shown you. And the last one is a very interesting one, it's the Motion Presets Panel. Here I can set up predetermined or pre-established 3D animations. Let's go ahead and go to a new document here and let's choose Ð let's go ahead and delete those objects and add another object. Let's add a oval and draw out and oval on the stage. Open up my Motion Presets. Let's go ahead and select that object and then let's choose Bounce 3D. There is a little preview of what that will look like. Bounce-smoosh, Fly-in Blur, Bounce in 3D. Let's go ahead and do Bounce in 3D and click Apply. Flash warns me that the 3D Transform is not supported by ActionScript 2.0. To use this feature you must target ActionScript 3.0. Some of these will be 2.0 and some of them will be 3.0. I think that the Bounce-smoosh is a 2.0. Yes, this one is a 2.0 but I must first convert this to a symbol, click OK to do that and now notice that there is my animation. So those are just animation presets. Fly-in-pause-pause. So these are new. Quite a convenient way to get some quick and dirty animations built with your objects. So that is again the Motion Presets Panel. There are additional Panels, it will be useful in different circumstances. For example, there is a variety of Panels for script work including the Actions Panel, which I demonstrated, but also the Compiler Errors, the Debug Panels and the Movie Explorer as well as the Output Panel. You also have some Panels related to the components including the Components Panel, the Components Inspector and then the category Other Panels including Accessibility, History, Scene, Strings and Web Services.