Chapter 1. Getting Around Flash

Computer programs these days strive to give you an intuitive work environment. A word processing document, for example, looks pretty much like a piece of paper and shows your words as you type them. Movie playing software has controls that look just like the ones on your home DVD player. Flash 8 provides the powerful and flexible tools that you need to create interactive animations, which is a more complex affair than producing text or playing media. Problem is, if this is your first time in an animation program, it may not be immediately obvious what to do with all these tools.

When you start with a blank Flash document, you find yourself staring at a blank white square and a dizzying array of icons, most of which appear to do nothing when you click them (Figure 1-1). You'd pretty much have to be a Flash developer to figure out what to do next . In this chapter, you get acquainted with all the different parts of the Flash window: the stage and main work area, the main menu, the toolbars and panels, the Timeline, and more. You'll also take Flash for a test drive and get some practice moving around the Flash screen. When you learn to create an animation of your own in Chapters 2 and 3, you'll feel right at home.

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Note: For more help getting acquainted with Flash, you can check out the built-in tutorials by selecting Help Flash Help Flash Tutorials. You can read about them, along with the rest of Flashs Help system, in this book's Appendix.

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Figure 1-1. The white rectangle in the middle of the main Flash windowthe Stageis where you actually work on your animations. This entire window, together with the Timeline, toolbars, and panels identified here, is called the Flash desktop, the Flash interface, or the Flash authoring environment.