Contents at a Glance

Introduction ................................................................ 1

AL

Part I: A Blast of Flash ................................................ 9

RI

Chapter 1: Getting Acquainted with Flash CS5 ............................................................ 11

Chapter 2: Your Basic Flash ........................................................................................... 35

TE

Part II: 1,000 Pictures and 1,000 Words .................... 49

MA

Chapter 3: Getting Graphic ............................................................................................. 51

Chapter 4: You Are the Object Editor ........................................................................... 99
Chapter 5: Whats Your Type? ..................................................................................... 135
Chapter 6: Layering It On .............................................................................................. 155

Part III: Getting Symbolic ........................................ 167

TE

Chapter 7: Heavy Symbolism ....................................................................................... 169

Chapter 8: Pushing Buttons .......................................................................................... 193

GH

Part IV: Total Flash-o-Rama ..................................... 207

RI

Chapter 9: Getting Animated ........................................................................................ 209

Chapter 10: Getting Interactive .................................................................................... 255
Chapter 11: Extravagant Audio, High-Velocity Video ............................................... 275

PY

Part V: The Movie, the Web, and the iPhone .............. 295

CO

Chapter 12: Putting It All Together.............................................................................. 297

Chapter 13: Publishing for the Flash Player ............................................................... 325
Chapter 14: Publishing to the iPhone.......................................................................... 361

Part VI: Building Web Sites Fast with Flash Catalyst... 393
Chapter 15: Working with Flash Catalyst .................................................................... 395
Chapter 16: Adding Components, Audio, Video, and More to Catalyst .................. 415

Part VII: The Part of Tens ......................................... 433

Chapter 17: Ten Frequently Asked Questions............................................................ 435
Chapter 18: Ten Best Flash Resources ........................................................................ 449
Chapter 19: Ten Flash Designers to Watch................................................................. 455

Index ...................................................................... 461

Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................. 1
About This Book .............................................................................................. 1
How to Use This Book ..................................................................................... 2
Foolish Assumptions ....................................................................................... 2
Conventions Used in This Book ..................................................................... 3
How This Book Is Organized .......................................................................... 3
Part I: A Blast of Flash ........................................................................... 3
Part II: 1,000 Pictures and 1,000 Words ............................................... 4
Part III: Getting Symbolic ...................................................................... 4
Part IV: Total Flash-o-Rama .................................................................. 4
Part V: The Movie, the Web, and the iPhone ..................................... 4
Part VI: Building Web Sites Fast with Flash Catalyst ......................... 5
Part VII: The Part of Tens ...................................................................... 5
Icons Used in This Book ................................................................................. 5
Where to Go from Here ................................................................................... 6
Your own personal library of vector graphics ................................... 6
Flash movies galore ............................................................................... 7

Part I: A Blast of Flash ................................................. 9

Chapter 1: Getting Acquainted with Flash CS5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
Discovering Flash .......................................................................................... 12
Understanding What You Can Create with Flash CS5 ............................... 13
Determining When Not to Use Flash CS5 .................................................... 14
Getting the Right Start .................................................................................. 15
Starting Flash on a PC.......................................................................... 15
Starting Flash on a Mac ....................................................................... 15
Creating a new movie .......................................................................... 16
Opening an existing movie ................................................................. 17
Taking a Look Around ................................................................................... 17
Tooling around the toolbars .............................................................. 18
Using panels ......................................................................................... 18
Discovering the Flash menus ............................................................. 20
Customizing the workspace ............................................................... 22
Staging your movies ............................................................................ 23
Following a timeline ............................................................................. 23
Getting Help in a Flash .................................................................................. 24
Helps multiple manuals...................................................................... 24
Finding more help on the Web ........................................................... 25

Flash Professional CS5 & Flash Catalyst CS5 For Dummies

Try It Youll Like It .................................................................................... 25
Conceiving your first animation......................................................... 25
Creating flashy drawings..................................................................... 25
Making graphics move ........................................................................ 29
Publishing your first animation for posterity................................... 31
Exiting Flash ......................................................................................... 32

Chapter 2: Your Basic Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

Looking at the Big Picture ............................................................................ 35
Setting the Stage ............................................................................................ 37
Choosing the Stage color .................................................................... 37
Specifying the frame rate .................................................................... 38
Setting the Stage size ........................................................................... 38
Adding Metadata............................................................................................ 39
Grabbing a Graphic ....................................................................................... 39
Understanding vectors and bitmaps ................................................. 39
Finding graphics................................................................................... 41
Going to the Library ............................................................................ 41
Using a Template ........................................................................................... 45
Printing Your Movie ...................................................................................... 46

Part II: 1,000 Pictures and 1,000 Words ..................... 49

Chapter 3: Getting Graphic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
Sharpening Your Pencil ................................................................................ 51
Setting the Pencil modifier.................................................................. 52
Setting the stroke type ........................................................................ 54
Setting the color ................................................................................... 56
Creating Shapely Shapes .............................................................................. 56
Line up ................................................................................................... 56
Be square .............................................................................................. 56
Be an egg ............................................................................................... 58
Go for the stars .................................................................................... 58
Mixing and Matching Shapes ....................................................................... 59
Cutting up shapes ................................................................................ 60
Placing objects on top of each other................................................. 60
Keeping Objects Safe and Secure ................................................................ 61
Using the object-drawing model ........................................................ 61
Getting primitive .................................................................................. 62
Creating Curves with the Pen ...................................................................... 64
Drawing straight lines ......................................................................... 65
Drawing curves .................................................................................... 65

Table of Contents
Getting Artistic with the Brush .................................................................... 66
Brush Mode modifier ........................................................................... 67
Brush Size drop-down list ................................................................... 68
Brush Shape drop-down list ............................................................... 68
Pressure and Tilt modifiers ................................................................ 68
Brush smoothing.................................................................................. 69
Creating Graffiti with the Spray Brush ........................................................ 70
Setting symbol properties .................................................................. 70
Setting brush properties ..................................................................... 71
Working with Spray Brush dots ......................................................... 72
Pouring on the Paint...................................................................................... 72
Strokes, Ink ..................................................................................................... 73
A Rainbow of Colors ...................................................................................... 74
Solid citizens......................................................................................... 74
Gradient colors .................................................................................... 79
Bitmap fills ............................................................................................ 81
Locking a fill .......................................................................................... 81
Pattern fills............................................................................................ 82
Drawing Precisely .......................................................................................... 90
The ruler rules...................................................................................... 90
Using guides ......................................................................................... 91
Working with the grid.......................................................................... 92
Snapping turtle ..................................................................................... 92
Pixel, pixel on the wall......................................................................... 93
The Import Business Using Outside Graphics ...................................... 93
Importing graphics .............................................................................. 94
Using imported graphics..................................................................... 95

Chapter 4: You Are the Object Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

Selecting Objects ........................................................................................... 99
Selecting with the Selection tool...................................................... 100
Lassoing your objects ....................................................................... 101
Selecting everything in one fell swoop............................................ 102
Moving, Copying, Deleting, and Erasing ................................................... 102
Movin on down the road .................................................................. 102
Aligning objects with the Align panel .............................................. 105
Copying objects ................................................................................. 106
Makin objects go away ..................................................................... 107
Erasing objects ................................................................................... 107
Making Shapes More Shapely .................................................................... 108
Reshaping shapes and outlines........................................................ 108
Using the Subselection tool .............................................................. 108
Adjusting curves with the Pen tool ................................................. 110
Freely transforming and distorting shapes .................................... 110
Straightening lines and curving curves........................................... 113

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Modifying line endings ...................................................................... 114
Optimizing curves .............................................................................. 114
Expanding and contracting fills ....................................................... 115
Softening edges .................................................................................. 115
Converting lines to fills ..................................................................... 117
Transforming Fills........................................................................................ 117
Transferring Properties .............................................................................. 119
Finding and Replacing Objects .................................................................. 120
Transforming Objects ................................................................................. 121
Scaling, scaling . . . ............................................................................. 121
Round and round and round we rotate ....................................... 122
Getting skewy ..................................................................................... 123
Flippety, floppety ............................................................................... 124
Combining Objects ...................................................................................... 125
Getting Grouped .......................................................................................... 126
Changing the Transformation Point .......................................................... 127
Breaking Apart Objects ............................................................................... 128
Establishing Order on the Stage ................................................................ 129
Undoing, Redoing, and Reusing ................................................................. 130
Undoing actions ................................................................................. 130
Redoing actions.................................................................................. 131
Using object-level undo and redo .................................................... 131
Reusing actions with the History panel .......................................... 132

Chapter 5: Whats Your Type? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135

Presenting Your Text .................................................................................. 135
Creating text ....................................................................................... 136
Editing text.......................................................................................... 137
Setting text attributes........................................................................ 140
Specifying text block properties ...................................................... 151
Creating Cool Text Effects .......................................................................... 153

Chapter 6: Layering It On. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155

Creating Layers ............................................................................................ 156
Using layers ........................................................................................ 156
Changing layer states ........................................................................ 157
Getting Those Layers Right ........................................................................ 159
Deleting layers .................................................................................... 159
Copying layers .................................................................................... 160
Renaming layers ................................................................................. 160
Reordering layers............................................................................... 160
Organizing layers ............................................................................... 161
Modifying layer properties ............................................................... 162
Working with Guide Layers ........................................................................ 163
Opening Windows with Mask Layers ........................................................ 165
Creating a mask effect ....................................................................... 165
Editing mask layers............................................................................ 166

Table of Contents

Part III: Getting Symbolic ......................................... 167

Chapter 7: Heavy Symbolism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .169
Understanding Symbol Types .................................................................... 170
Using graphic symbols ...................................................................... 170
Using movie clip symbols ................................................................. 170
Using button symbols ....................................................................... 171
Creating Symbols ......................................................................................... 171
Creating symbols from existing objects ......................................... 172
Creating empty symbols ................................................................... 173
Converting an animation to a movie clip symbol .......................... 173
Creating a symbol by duplicating a symbol ................................... 175
Modifying Symbols ...................................................................................... 175
Changing the properties of a symbol .............................................. 175
Editing symbols .................................................................................. 176
Using Symbols from Other Movies ............................................................ 177
Using the Flash Library ..................................................................... 179
Using the Flash For Dummies Library ............................................. 179
Working with Instances, for Instance........................................................ 180
Inserting instances............................................................................. 180
Editing instances ................................................................................ 181
Changing 3D position and rotation .................................................. 188

Chapter 8: Pushing Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193

Creating Simple Buttons ............................................................................. 193
Understanding button states............................................................ 194
Making a basic button ....................................................................... 195
Putting Buttons to the Test ........................................................................ 197
Creating Complex Buttons ......................................................................... 197
Adding a sound to a button .............................................................. 198
Adding a movie clip to a button ....................................................... 199
Adding an action for a button .......................................................... 202

Part IV: Total Flash-o-Rama ...................................... 207

Chapter 9: Getting Animated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209
Choosing Your Animation Technique ....................................................... 209
Mastering the Timeline ............................................................................... 211
Touring the Timeline ......................................................................... 211
Playing your animations ................................................................... 212
Turtle or hare? ................................................................................... 213
Setting your frame view .................................................................... 214
Animating with Keyframes ......................................................................... 214
Frame after Frame after Frame .................................................................. 215

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The Animation Tween ................................................................................. 216
From here to there motion tweening.......................................... 218
Using Motion Presets ........................................................................ 226
Using the Motion Editor .................................................................... 228
Tweening shapes ............................................................................... 229
Editing Animation ........................................................................................ 233
Adding labels and comments ........................................................... 233
Selecting frames ................................................................................. 234
Copying and pasting frames ............................................................. 234
Copying and pasting motion ............................................................ 235
Moving frames .................................................................................... 236
Reversing your animation ................................................................. 236
Changing speed .................................................................................. 236
Using onion skins ............................................................................... 237
Moving everything around the Stage at once ................................ 239
Connecting the Hip Bone to the Thigh Bone ........................................... 240
Putting bones into your symbols ..................................................... 241
Adding bones to shapes .................................................................... 243
Adjusting how shapes flex with the Bind tool ................................ 244
Adding constraints and Springs, using the Bind tool .................... 246
Animating your bones and Springs ................................................. 248
Creating Animations with the Code Snippets Panel................................ 250
Making the Scene ......................................................................................... 253
Breaking your movie into scenes..................................................... 253
Manipulating that scene.................................................................... 253

Chapter 10: Getting Interactive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .255

Coding with Snippets .................................................................................. 256
Buttons versus frames versus movie clips ..................................... 257
Adding code to frames ...................................................................... 257
Clicking buttons ................................................................................. 260
Using Code Snippets to Manipulate Movie Clips ..................................... 265
Dragging movie clips ......................................................................... 265
Creating custom cursors................................................................... 267
Understanding ActionScript ....................................................................... 268
Method acting .................................................................................... 269
Using an event handler ..................................................................... 270
Exploring ActionScript Further.................................................................. 271
External scripting............................................................................... 272
Discovering more about ActionScript ............................................. 273

Chapter 11: Extravagant Audio, High-Velocity Video . . . . . . . . . . . . .275

Acquiring Amazing Audio ........................................................................... 276
Importing sounds ............................................................................... 277
Placing sounds into a movie ............................................................. 277

Table of Contents
Editing Sounds ............................................................................................. 279
Deleting parts of a sound .................................................................. 280
Changing the volume ......................................................................... 281
Managing Sound........................................................................................... 281
Video Magic .................................................................................................. 283
Four ways to use video in Flash ....................................................... 284
Converting your video with Adobe Media Encoder ...................... 284
Preparing to embed FLV video into Flash ...................................... 286
Embedding a video ............................................................................ 288
Streaming a video .............................................................................. 290

Part V: The Movie, the Web, and the iPhone ............... 295
Chapter 12: Putting It All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297
Adding the Power of Components............................................................. 298
Using RadioButtons in a Flash movie .............................................. 299
Using CheckBoxes in a Flash movie ................................................ 304
Using ComboBoxes in a Flash movie............................................... 306
Using Lists in a Flash movie ............................................................. 310
Creating a Preloader ................................................................................... 312
Creating an Entire Web Site with Flash..................................................... 315
Using the Timeline to store Web content ....................................... 316
Testing for the Flash Player ....................................................................... 319
Detecting the Flash Player version .................................................. 320
Creating alternative sites .................................................................. 320
Using Movie Explorer .................................................................................. 320
Making Your Site More Accessible ............................................................ 322

Chapter 13: Publishing for the Flash Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .325

Optimizing Movies for Fast Download ...................................................... 326
Simplifying artwork............................................................................ 326
Optimizing text ................................................................................... 327
Compressing sound ........................................................................... 328
Animating efficiently .......................................................................... 329
Testing Movies ............................................................................................. 329
Using the Test Movie command ...................................................... 330
Testing a movie in a Web browser .................................................. 332
Saving Your Work in Flash CS4 Format .................................................... 333
Publishing Flash Movies ............................................................................. 334
Publishing to SWF ........................................................................................ 335
Flash Player and ActionScript version ............................................ 335
Image and sound settings ................................................................. 336
SWF settings ....................................................................................... 337
Advanced settings ............................................................................. 338

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Publishing to HTML ..................................................................................... 340
Specifying Flash Player detection and other HTML settings ....... 340
Embedding an SWF file into an existing Web page ........................ 346
Publishing to Other Formats ...................................................................... 349
Creating PNG graphic files ................................................................ 349
Creating self-playing movies............................................................. 352
Using Publish Profiles ................................................................................. 353
Creating a publish profile ................................................................. 353
Duplicating or renaming a publish profile ...................................... 355
Modifying a publish profile ............................................................... 355
Deleting a publish profile .................................................................. 356
Exporting and importing publish profiles ...................................... 356
Using Publish Preview ................................................................................ 357
Posting Your Movie to Your Web Site ...................................................... 357
Exporting Movies and Images .................................................................... 358

Chapter 14: Publishing to the iPhone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .361

Creating Your iPhone Application............................................................. 362
Getting started ................................................................................... 362
Working with touch events............................................................... 363
Dealing with text ................................................................................ 365
Optimizing performance ................................................................... 366
Creating your icons and screenshot ............................................... 368
Becoming an Apple iPhone Developer...................................................... 370
Registering as an Apple iPhone Developer..................................... 371
Enrolling in the iPhone Developer Program ................................... 371
Obtaining your iPhone Developer Certificates on a Mac.............. 373
Obtaining your iPhone Developer Certificates with Windows..... 376
Registering your iPhone for testing ................................................. 377
Creating your P12 file ........................................................................ 378
Creating your provisioning profile .................................................. 380
Adding your provisioning profile to iTunes ................................... 382
Transferring your P12 file and provisioning profile ...................... 383
Testing your Application ............................................................................ 385
Setting your iPhone Application and Installer settings ................ 385
Quick Publishing and Testing on your iPhone ............................... 389
Deploying on the Apple App Store ............................................................ 391

Part VI: Building Web Sites Fast with Flash Catalyst ...393
Chapter 15: Working with Flash Catalyst. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .395
Discovering Flash Catalyst ......................................................................... 396
Preparing Your Artwork ............................................................................. 397
Creating unique objects .................................................................... 398
Organizing your layers ...................................................................... 398
Adding the looks for button states .................................................. 399

Table of Contents
Importing Your File into Catalyst .............................................................. 399
Defining Pages in Catalyst .......................................................................... 401
Working with Buttons ................................................................................. 402
Converting artwork to buttons ........................................................ 402
Defining button states ....................................................................... 403
Assigning Interactions to Components..................................................... 407
Adding Animation ........................................................................................ 409
Assigning beginning and ending states ........................................... 409
Defining the transition....................................................................... 411

Chapter 16: Adding Components, Audio, Video,

and More to Catalyst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .415
Creating Artwork and Adding Text ........................................................... 415
Viewing and selecting objects .......................................................... 416
Drawing paths .................................................................................... 416
Formatting paths................................................................................ 418
Creating text ....................................................................................... 421
Importing images ............................................................................... 421
Editing in Adobe Illustrator .............................................................. 422
Adding Interface Components ................................................................... 422
Inserting wireframe components ..................................................... 423
Formatting wireframe components ................................................. 423
Adding Sound ............................................................................................... 426
Adding Video ................................................................................................ 428
Using SWF Files ............................................................................................ 429
Integrating with Flash Builder .................................................................... 430
Publishing Your Web Site ........................................................................... 430

Part VII: The Part of Tens ......................................... 433

Chapter 17: Ten Frequently Asked Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .435
How Do I Combine Two Flash Movies? ..................................................... 435
How Can I Sync Sound with Motion?......................................................... 437
Whats the Best Way to Import Bitmaps? ................................................. 438
How Do I Rescale My Movies Size? ........................................................... 439
What Are the Best Tips for Creating Movies? .......................................... 441
Can Flash Do Full 3D? .................................................................................. 442
How Do I Center a Flash Movie in a Web Page? ....................................... 444
What Are the Size Limits for a Flash Movie? ............................................ 446
How Do I Export Flash Movies for Use in Video Editing Software? ....... 447
What Are the Top Tips for Web Design with Flash? ............................... 447
Set your goal ....................................................................................... 447
Make thumbnail sketches first ......................................................... 448
Connect the parts to the whole ....................................................... 448
Use fewer than four fonts.................................................................. 448
Test and test again............................................................................. 448

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Chapter 18: Ten Best Flash Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .449
Check Out Award-Winning Movies ............................................................ 449
Look on the Flash Web Pages .................................................................... 450
Visit Our Site ................................................................................................ 450
Take a Course............................................................................................... 451
Join a Flash Discussion Group ................................................................... 451
Check Out Flash Resource Sites ................................................................ 452
Check Out Sites That Use Flash ................................................................. 453
Attend a Flash Conference ......................................................................... 453
Collect Flash Movies ................................................................................... 454
Reuse Your Best Stuff.................................................................................. 454

Chapter 19: Ten Flash Designers to Watch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .455

Joshua Davis................................................................................................. 455
Anthony Eden............................................................................................... 456
Andy Foulds.................................................................................................. 457
Freedom & Partners .................................................................................... 457
Chris Georgenes........................................................................................... 457
Ben Hantoot.................................................................................................. 458
Seb Lee-Delisle and Dominic Minns .......................................................... 458
Erik Natzke.................................................................................................... 459
Mical Reynaud............................................................................................ 459
Jared Tarbell ................................................................................................ 460

Index ....................................................................... 461