Organizing with Layers and Layer Folders

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If you are an experienced Flash user, you probably already organize your layers. It's a good idea to get in the habit of placing certain kinds of content and actions on separate layers. The following sections explain some of the most commonly used Flash layer names and functions. You'll develop your own naming system, which best suits the way you work.

Content layers and layer folders

Content layers are layers or layers in folders that hold your art and things such as buttons, text, or sound. As you work through this Flash section, you'll see that the authors put almost everything on its own separate layer. For example, a background image is on one layer, buttons on another, actions on another, and so on.

Actions

Actions are bits of ActionScript code similar to JavaScript that add functionality to your movies. You'll discover that actions are the power behind Flash, they allow you to communicate to different parts of your movies. If you keep all of your actions on a layer named actions, you'll be able to locate them easily.

Guide layer

If you right-click (Control+click) the layer name, you see the Guide option. This is a layer where you can keep any guide you want to use. For example, you can set up guidelines for your movie and store them on this layer. You can also use shapes, such as a rectangle, that you want to arrange other objects around or maybe a bitmap image of a mockup to use as a guide. Content you put on the guide layer does not export with the movie.

Motion guide

In Chapter 27, you learn how to make motion tweens using a motion guide. In short, when you select a tween object and right-click (Control+click) and choose Motion Guide, the object is added above the layer the tween is on. When it's added, it is added as a Guide layer. The name will be Guide plus the name of the layer for which it's a guide. An arch icon appears before the guide name indicating that it's a motion guide. You draw the path you want the motion to follow in the Guide layer. This layer doesn't export with your movie.

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