Subtitles of the Movie

Another Workspace element definitely worth singling out here in this overview of the Flash interface is the Properties Inspector. Property Inspector can be accessed by choosing Window Properties if it's not already open. I recommend leaving this open at all times. It's another tool that has changed configuration in this version of Flash if you are familiar with earlier versions. This was generally a horizontal Panel, typically at the bottom of your interface. Now it's more of a Panel like you would see in the other Panel sets in Flash. More of a vertical orientation. It can be collapsed like so by clicking on the gray Ð light gray area or toggling it, open and closed. It can be moved around as a free floating window or it can be docked like other Panel sets in Flash here down at the bottom. Or undocked. There it is over to the left. So again, I generally leave this as a free floating window. Opened. And you will notice that depending on what you've selected in the Workspace such as an object on the stage. The stage itself or one of the tools here in the Tools Panel. Go ahead and unlock my stage. I'm getting some errors there. This is a 3D Transform tool that I have selected here, it's not supported in Flash player 8 which is set up in the Properties for this document, so let's go ahead and notice if I click on the Text Tool, Paint Brush Tool, and so on, the Properties Inspector there changes. There is a graphic Ð there is the stage itself. There is a drawing object. So this is real handy way to not only figure out what it is you've selected or what Flash thinks you've selected here in the Properties Inspector, notice there is a label there, there is a drawing object. There is a graphic. There is a group. Also the tools, which Tool you have selected and for each tool there is a set of Properties that you can modify. Probably the Text Tool is the best example of this. You can set the Font Family and Style, Size and Color. Paragraph formatting. Spacing, Margins, Behaviors and so on. So very handy tool, especially when you are learning Flash and I recommend although it's bulkier now that it used to be, I recommend keeping this open somewhere in your Workspace. Because you will very quickly discover that the Properties Inspector here is an indispensible tool for streamlining your workflow and also for improving your work efficiency. So again you want to leave it out at all times for quick reference. Another real indispensible way that you will use the Properties Inspector is to set up and adjust your Tweens. On this Timeline here I have some blue shaded frames and some green shaded frames, these are Tween animations and you can see here that by selecting those frames, my label here changes, the Tweening is set and I can adjust something called Easing, Rotation, such as clockwise, counter-clockwise and there is also some Sound settings that is going to be very, very useful when working with sound. For example notice that I have these blue frames selected, these are referred to as Motion Tweens, Classic Tweens and the green is different. The green is a shape Tween. Notice that I have different settings for each one. For example, the green frames there Ð I have an Ease value for the Tweening. I have a Blend value, but I don't have the Rotation and the Snap and the Sync and some of the other Properties that I can set only with these types of animations and frames that I've selected up here in the Timeline. So there you have an overview of the Flash interface including the Workspace presets. Workspace elements. Workspace Panels and then more specific information about the very handy Toolbar and Properties Inspector. Lets get into both of these tools in more detail in the next section of the tutorial, creating simple graphics where I want to give you an overview of the Graphic Creation tools. Talk about Lines and Strokes and Fills. The Object versus Merged Drawing Models. The Geometric Shape tools, the Brush Tool, Pen Tool, Text Tool and some of the others that you will need to learn right away to create or modify your graphics in the Flash Workspace.