Lesson 11:

Flash Working
Environment
OBJECTIVES:
Identify the parts and functions of
Adobe Flash
Familiarize oneself with its
environment
Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Screen
• Flash CS6 counts with most handy and intuitive
environment or working interface. Makeover, it has an
advantage because it is similar to other Adobe Systems
programs such as Dreamweaver, Photoshop and
Illustrator etc. It makes easier to assume Flash because
of its management and control. We will see all of these
after opening Flash CS6 for the first time:
Menu Bar

Panels
Basic Parts of Adobe Flash Professional
• 1. Start Page- one of the newest feature of Flash CS6
that allows user to create New Files, Open an existing file
or templates.
• 2. Menu Bar- displays the commands that use while
making the project.
• 3. Toolbox- contains the objects that the user may want to
insert to the file or project.
• 4. Properties Panel- Displays the property of the selected
in the document or stage.
• 5. Stage- is the place where you will work and do your
life.

• 6. Timeline- allows the user to control the object(when

and how long will object move).

• 7. Panels- helps monitor and modify objects on the stage.

Upon opening Flash, the panels that are automatically
present are Color, Swatches and Library Panels.
Menu Bar
• Makes it easier to success the different program features.
It is similar to any other web or graphic designer program,
although it has some particularities. Here are the main
Submenus that can be accessed:
File: it allows creating, opening and saving archives.
Import has exceptional power; it inserts to the current
movie nearly all types of archives (sounds, videos, images
and even Flash movies) or the Publication settings option
from which the characteristics of the publications can
modified. It also enables to configure the printing pages,
print them, etc.
 Edit: It is a classic menu that allows cutting, copying,
pasting objects or as well images or frames; it also allows
customizing some of the most common options of the
program.
View: Apart from typical zooms, it allows moving the
frames and scenes. It also includes the possibility to create
a grid and some guides. These ones can be selected from
submenu Grid and Guides from where its options can be
configured.
Insert: It permits the user to insert objects into the
movie, as well as new frames, layers, actions, scenes...
 Modify: The option transform permits one to modify the
graphics exiting in the movie, and the option Draw Bitmap
allows to modify current graphics in vector maps. This
theme will be discussed further in the next lesson. Other
options allow the users to modify characteristics of the
animation elements Smooth, Optimize or of the same
movie.
Text: Its contents affect the edtion of text. It will be further
discusseding pages.
Commands: it allows administrating the Commands
(group of saved sentences that allows emulating what user
can introduce to the edition environment)that were save in
the animation. It also obtains other news from the
 Control: From here, the user can modify the properties
of the movie reproduction Play, Rewind, Test movie.
Window: In addition to the classical options of
distributing the windows, this menu includes shortcuts to
ALL the panels.
Help: From here the users can access the assistance
that Adobe Flash offers, from the current manual up to the
Action Script, going through tutorials, guided lections etc..
TimeLine
• The Timeline represents a simple mode of visualization. It
consists of two parts:
1. The Frames that are limited by vertical lines forming
rectangles.
2. The Numbers of frames shows the assigned number of
each frame, its duration and when it will appear in the
movie.
Frames
Frame Numbers

Other Tools
Layers
• The concept of the Layer is basic to manage Flash
efficiently. A Layer could be defined as one independent
movie of only one level. That is to say, one layer contains
its own Timeline with endless frames.
Working Area

Stage as working
Area
• The Stage is the working area of Flash where in all
drawing and editing are done. The stage has very
important properties, due to the fact that they coincide
with Document Properties. In order to access them, right-
click on anywhere on the stage with no objects and then
on Document Properties
Dimensions: They fix the size of the movie. The Smallest
size is 1x1 pixels and the biggest one is of 2880x2880
pixels.
Background Color: The color selected here will be applied
to the entire movie.
Frame Rate: It is the number of frames per second as the
movie plays.
Ruler Units: It is the unit of measurement used(i.e. inch,
centimeter, pixels etc.)
Make default: It allows storing the properties of the current
document and applying them to all the new created
documents. These properties can be changed using this
panel.
View or Zoom Tool
• The Zoom Tool is used to approach or move away the
object view, including more or less zone of the Work Area.
Every time we click in the Zoom Tool, we duplicate the
percentage indicated in the Zoom Panel.
• Zoom Panel: It is a set of direct access to the work when
they are used correctly.
Panels
The Panels are command sets grouped according their
function. For example, all that makes references to actions
will be in the “Actions” Panel. Its mission is to simplify and
Facilitate the commands use:
1. Align Panel: It is very useful in placing the objects in the
stage.
2. Color Panel: Using this panel, the user can create the
desired colors.
3. Color Swatches Panel: It allows selecting a color quickly
and graphically.
4. Info Panel: It shows the size and the coordinates of the
selected objects with possibility of modification. It is very
useful for exact alignments.
5. Tranform Panel: It scales, shrinks and rotates the
selected object.
6. Actions Panel: It is very helpful when using Action Script
and associate actions to the movie.
7. Behaviors Panel: They allow the user to assign certain
objects as a series of characteristics/ behaviors that later
could be stored and applied to other objects easily.
8. Components Panel: It allows accessing constructed and
ready-to-used components that Flash provides. The
components are “intellegent” objects with characteristic
properties and many utilities(calendars, scrolls etc...)
9. Properties Panel: With no doubt, it is the most used and
the most important panel. It shows the properties of the
object selected at this moment: border, background color,
line type characters size, typography, objects properties (if
there are interpolations...) coordinates, size etc.
10. Movie Explorer Panel: It allows access in all the movie
easily and Quickly.
Scenes
• A scene is only a portion of the timeline including
everything(Layers, frames...) its main aim is to organize
the movie, so that the parts with no connection could be
placed to one after another by following the Timeline. This
way, if the movie is diveded into 3 scenes, there will be 3
timelines, 3 groups of layers and 3 groups of frames that
can be seen and edited apparently in three different
movies.
Frames and Timeline
• A frame represents the content of the movie at one
moment of time. So far, an animation is nothing more as a
succession of frames. The user can control all these from
the timeline, but not all the frames have the same
behavior and can be treated equally. Here are the types of
frames and their characteristics:
Keyframe has specific contents that are created to insert
into the movie inexistent content. The user can identify
them by the black point that is in the center or by the
black vertical line.
 Normal Frame (Normal frame): These frames always
follow the keyframes. They do not represent new content
and they are gray. The ultimate frame of a sequence of
normal frames are represented by a white square on the
gray background.
Frame Container: They are not exactly frames; they
represent a place inside the timeline where the user can
insert one frame. by default, they fill the entire movie and
flash will not take them into account during the publishing of
the movie. In the previous image, these are frames starting
from 12). One from every five frames container is gray, the
rest is white.
 Empty Frames: They are frames with no content and
their color is white.
Labeled Frame: It has at the top a red “ flag” that
indicates an associated name. This name is set from the
panel “Frame”. If the length of the frame is enough, the user
can read the name(or label) that identifies the group of the
frames.
Frame with associated Actions: At the top, there is one
“a” that indicates an associated action. These frames are
especially important because these actions ae “hidden” at
the beginning.in order to see them, the user must access
the Actions Panel.They can change the behavior of the
movie.
• Animated Frames: There could be one of those two
types:
1. Movement animation Frames: They are purple frames
and represent the move(with or without effects) of one
object that becomes an initial or final keyframe. In order to
represent this animation, an arrow appears.

2. Frames of form Animation: They are green frames and

represent a change of objects form that passes from its first
initial form to its final. In order to represent this animation,
an arrow appears between the end forms.