Creating Named Anchors

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In previous versions of Flash, it was difficult to make Flash sites that allowed viewers to use their browser's navigation methods (Back and Forward buttons ) to move through the Flash movie. Because each .swf file appeared to the browser to be a single page, you had to create separate movies for each "page" that you wanted the browser to be able to find. Flash MX allows you to integrate browser navigation with Flash's keyframe navigation for some browsers on the Windows platform.

You choose which points in your movie constitute new "pages." Then you set up keyframes at those points and assign to them a special form of frame label called the named anchor . Qualified browsers will be able to find these anchors, thereby allowing viewers to navigate your movie with the browser's Back and Forward buttons. When you publish your movie, Flash creates the HTML coding necessary for the anchor tags.

The Limitations of Named Anchors

Although you can create named anchors in the authoring environment on both the Mac and Windows platforms, not every browser that can display Flash Player 6 content wil be able to take advantage of the named-anchor feature. Named anchors require Internet Explorer 5 or later or Netscape 4.x with Live Connect enabled. And even with these browsers installed, some users especially those in the Macintosh worldmay have difficulty using the browsers navigation arrows with named anchors.

To assign anchor status to a keyframe:

1. In the Timeline, select the keyframe that you want to contain an anchor tag.

2. Access the Frame Property Inspector.

3. In the Frame field, type a name for this frame.

4. Check the Named Anchor checkbox below the Frame Label field (Figure 12.22).

   Figure 12.22. Checking the Named Anchor checkbox makes it possible to publish a movie with the proper HTMLcoding for anchor tags. These tags allow some browsers in the Windows world to navigate through the anchor frames when the user clicks the browser's Back and Forward buttons.

   

5. In the Timeline, deselect the keyframe.

   A little anchor icon replaces the red label flag in the labeled keyframe. If there's room within the keyframe span, the text of the label appears as well (Figure 12.23).

   Figure 12.23. Anchors must be placed in keyframes. The anchor icon in the Timeline indicates that the keyframe is a named anchor.

   

   To see how the anchors work in a browser, you must publish your movie by using the HTML template called Flash with Named Anchors. You will learn about publishing movies with templates in Chapter 16.

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