Classes
Review from First Class: Symbol Use
Developing your own work process is important for making your authoring file easy to manage, especially when you work with other people as part of a team. I use these points as a general rule for symbol conversion:
Graphics:
- should be used for managing recurring graphics in your movie
- should only be one frame long to prevent from wasting unused frames/file size, and to avoid performance confusion with instances (since instances can be told to loop, be on a specific frame, etc.)
- I usually try to avoid placing graphics or MovieClips within graphics, as they aren't accessible with ActionScript
- cannot be targeted with ActionScript
MovieClips
- used for multiple frame animations
- can contain graphics or other MovieClips
- can be targeted by ActionScript
Pixel Fonts in Flash
In past versions of Flash, pixel fonts were difficult to render and required integer x and y positions of the text box. In Flash 8, text rendering can be chosen from the properties menu. For more details, check out this Adobe technote on pixel fonts in Flash.
| Fonts for Flash | a site to purchase pixel fonts |
| Kirupa Pixel Fonts Tutorial | Kirupa tutorial on pixel fonts in Flash |
| Da Font | A great online font resource |
Setting Frame Labels and Comments
Instead of using frame numbers with gotoAndPlay() or gotoAndStop(), you can use frame labels, which ensure that if your timeline changes, the exact position where you want the playhead will remain the same. In order to do this, set a name for your frame. Make sure your frame name doesn't contain spaces or non-alphanumeric characters.
Now, you can use gotoAndPlay("frame");
Alternatively, you can place comments within the frame. Comments are not functionally used, but can be used as an authoring reminder to you or another Flash designer. To place a comment, simply add // before your frame name. Comments can use any characters you wish, including spaces.
Sample Timeline Actions File
This sample provides examples of frame labels in use in a timeline.
Download sample of timeline labels in Flash (ZIP)
This is an example of a mask
Download sample of mask in Flash (ZIP)
This is an example of a MovieClip control on different timelines.