Property Inspector

The Property inspector is located at the bottom of the Workspace and is used to control the properties of the tools and objects in Flash. The Property inspector is context dependent, which means that at any given time, it displays only the properties available to the element you've selected. For example, as shown in Figure 8.11, if you draw a shape with the Oval tool, the Property inspector gives you access to the fill color, stroke color, stroke thickness, stroke style, and custom settings for the stroke.

Figure 8.11. The Property inspector in the Oval tool context.

However, if you select a movie clip symbol instance on the stage, you get access to the symbol type (behavior), the instance name, and color effects that can be applied to the instance (see Figure 8.12). If you expand the movie clip Property inspector, you also get access to the width and height of the clip as well as its x and y positions relative to the registration point of the parent timeline.

Figure 8.12. Properties of the movie clip instance.

When the tool selected does not have specific properties available, the Property inspector defaults to the document properties. For example, the Eraser tool does not have any properties that are listed in the Property inspector, so when it is selected, the Property inspector shows the document's properties.