FLASH TIPS AND TRICKS ===>>>

Flash, like many other computer programs, is full of hidden secrets to make work easier and faster. Here are helpful hints for the program.

Make animations more natural

Once a motion tween has been created, select anywhere in the shaded area and take a look at the Properties window. In the box marked "Ease," slide the value up to naturally decelerate the tween or down to speed it up.

Make your audio crisp

A common mistake among Flash beginners is creating Flash files that have audio tracks of someone speaking, but in the final project the audio quality is distorted and the speaker is rendered unrecognizable. To correct this, click anywhere in the audio on the timeline. In the drop down menu select File > Publish Settings... Click the "Set..." buttons next to "Audio Stream" and "Audio Event" and change the compression to "Speech."

Create invisible buttons

Sometimes creating invisible buttons on an existing background is necessary like in this project where the movie posters were laid out in Photoshop. To create this effect, simply create a button with blank up, over and down frames, and create a polygon that corresponds to the hit state you desire. The empty button will show up as a light blue on the stage, but invisible in the final product.

Label everything

Instead of coding ActionScript to go to frame numbers, create frame labels so if the timeline is adjusted, the routing will still be consistent.

Move that symbol faster

To nudge something across the workspace faster, hold down the Shift key while pressing the arrow buttons.