Testing an FLA File

A Flash document cannot be shared online without publishing it into a format that can be viewed using Flash Player (although there are other formats available). Before you publish a file for uploading, you probably will want to test it pretty extensively first to see whether the features you added actually work. Although Lesson 11 covers publishing in detail, you will walk through the basics in this lesson. You should still be working on bookstore2.fla.

1.	Select File > Save As and save bookstore2.fla as bookstore3.fla. Make sure that you save this file in the TechBookstore directory on your hard drive.
2.	Select the background layer and then drag a Button component from the Components panel to the Stage. Drop a Button component on the background layer anywhere on the Stage. You simply need something on the Stage so you don't have to test an empty document.
3.	Select Control > Test Movie from the main menu to test the FLA file. The testing environment opens, and your file displays as a SWF file. Flash actually publishes the SWF file specifically so it can be tested, and the SWF file is playing in the integrated Flash Player. This is the way your SWF file generally appears online when it's playing in Flash Player.
4.	Close out of the testing environment by clicking the X on the document tab. You can also select File > Close to close the testing environment. The test SWF file closes, and you are taken back to the authoring environment. If you look in your TechBookstore folder, you can see a SWF version of your file.
5.	Select File > Publish Preview > Default to preview your Flash work in a browser. By default, Publish Preview produces both an HTML file and a Flash SWF file, so you can see whether the file works in a browser. The HTML file is actually published to your hard drive, just like the SWF file. In your browser window, select View > Page Source to view the source code that Flash has produced. Notice that the SWF file is referenced in the HTML file with both OBJECT and EMBED tags and that Flash filled out all the appropriate parameters for you.
6.	Return to Flash and delete the component from the background layer. Select the Button component on the stage and press Backspace or Delete to remove it from the Stage.
7.	Save the changes you made to the file.