PE4_Flash

I've decided to learn Flash for my next Practical Experience assignment. I logged on to Lynda.com to be very overwhelmed by the amount of tutorial time. Due to the length of the tutorial, I'll be covering one section of it this week in two posts and the other in next week's posts.

I myself am not very familiar with Adobe Suite software so this is a bit slow-going for me, but I want to challenge myself so here we go...

The beginning of the tutorial starts you off with the basics: getting to the file types, the workspace, and the tools you are going to be using. Seeing as I am new to this, I learned a lot and took a lot of notes.

Here are some of the things I learned:

File Types: There are essentially two types of files you work with in Adobe Flash. They are FLA files, which are Flash working files and SWF files, which are output files. FLA files consist of ActionScript files, AIR files, and Flash Lite files. Actionscript refers to the programming language. AIR files are associated with desktop publishing, whereas, Flash Lite files are associated with mobile applications.

 

The Workspace: The workspace is comprised of numerous sections. In the center you have the white space known as the stage. To the right you have the properties toolbox which adjusts and changes as you select and work with different tools. At the bottom of the screen you have the time line which shows the progression of your work for animation and the like along with layers. You can expand all the toolbars/boxes as well as rearrange them to make your own customized workspace.

Merge Drawing versus Object Drawing: When working in Flash you will be working primarily with vector graphics, which are graphics created using lines. Bitmap graphics on the other hand are graphics made up of different pixels. Merge Drawing combines shapes when they overlap on the same layer. Object Drawing is a grouped shaped format. You can see the difference below. The object on the left is an Object drawing (using bitmap graphics) and the one on the right is a Merge drawing (using vector graphics). Before drawing in Flash you must designate whether or not the new shape will be Merge or Object. Once created you can always go back and switch between the two, but it is a much more tedious process.

Here are some keyboard shortcuts/tips I learned as well:

V = selection tool

T = text tool

Q = free transform tool

zoom out while in zoom mode  = hold OPT

cmd + + = zoom in

cmd + - = zoom out

If you are using the selection tool--> hold down the spacebar to turn it into the hand tool

More to come...