Working Faster

For the sake of brevity and uniformity , instructions in this book usually refer to commands only from Director's main menus (File, Edit, View, and so on). In many cases, however, you may find it faster to access these commands by using a contextual menu or a keyboard shortcut.

To display a contextual menu:

• Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) a movie element, such as a cast member ( Figure 1.11 ), or an interface element, such as a Director window.

  Figure 1.11. A contextual menu offers you access to the most common commands with one click of the mouse button.

  

  You'll get a menu containing the most relevant commands for that element.

To find the keyboard shortcut for a command:

• Open the main menu that contains the command. The keyboard equivalent is listed on the menu to the right of the command ( Figure 1.12 ).

  Figure 1.12. Menus display keyboard shortcuts alongside commands.

  

Tip

• You'll find a complete list of keyboard shortcuts in an appendix at the end of this book.

To perform a keyboard shortcut:

1. Hold down the specified modifier key or keys.

   The usual modifier keys are Shift, Control, and Alt in Windows. On the Mac, they're Shift, Command, and Option ( Table 1.1 ). Ignore the plus signs that are included in the keyboard shortcuts in Windows menus; they're punctuation, not keys that you need to hold down.

2. Press and release the activator key or keys.

   Press and hold Control/Command and then press and release O to open a new file, for example. To save a file, press and hold Control/Command and then press and release S.

3. Release the modifier key.

   Director executes the command.

Table 1.1. Mac menu shortcut symbols

M AC MENU	K EY SYMBOLS
	Shift
	Command
	Option