Panels


You have a lot of freedom to position panels, as suits your work habits. Panels can be docked or free-floating, and can even be moved from one docked location to another.

Panels can be dragged with the handle in the panel's upper-left corner. To collapse a panel, click on the collapse arrow/button at the top-left corner of the panel or the arrow/button centered above the panel group in the horizontal splitter.

The panels in Flash work the same as they do in all Studio applications, although a few panels are unique to Flash and are covered here.

Color Mixer Panel

The Color Mixer panel offers many tools for selecting colors for fills and lines (see Figure 8.13). Color types include solid color, linear gradient, radial gradient, and imported bitmaps. In previous versions, these types could be applied only to fills. In Flash 8, you can now apply these color types to lines as well.

Figure 8.13. Color Mixer.


You can select your color from the color mixer in different ways:

  • From a palette of web-safe colors

  • By numerically setting RGB and Alpha values

  • By using the color picker with accompanying saturation level selector

You get experience with the color mixer in the coming chapters, especially Chapters 9 and 10, "Animation Basics."

Filters Panel

Filters are special effects or design shortcuts. They can be applied to objects from the Filters panel, which is grouped with the Property inspector at the bottom of the workspace.

Filters can be applied to text fields, movie clips, and buttons, either alone or in combination with other filters. They can be added to or removed from an existing object at any time in the development and design process. The available filters include the following:

  • Drop shadow

  • Blur

  • Glow

  • Bevel

  • Gradient glow

  • Gradient bevel

  • Adjust color

Combinations of filters can be saved as presets, which can be renamed or deleted.

The Actions Panel

When working in the Flash authoring environment, you write and edit ActionScript in the Actions panel. To open the Actions panel (see Figure 8.14), go to Window, Development Panels, Action, or use the F9 keyboard shortcut.

Figure 8.14. The Actions panel.




Special Edition Using Macromedia Studio 8
Special Edition Using Macromedia Studio 8
ISBN: 0789733854
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 337

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