working with movie clips – lesson 61 working with movie clips lesson 6

Working with Movie Clips – Lesson 6 1

Working with Movie Clips

Lesson 6

2 Working with Movie Clips – Lesson 6

Objectives

Create a movie clip symbol out of existing layers or from another movie clip symbol.

Work in symbol-editing mode to edit a movie clip instance.

Edit and align text boxes.


Use movie clip symbols to create content HTML Web sites consist of multiple

pages which must be created as separate pages.

Flash sites can consist of a single movie with content for multiple pages in one Flash document.

You can do this by creating movie clip symbols within the main document.

Movie clip symbols can be created from existing layers or from another movie clip symbol.


Create a movie clip from existing layers To create a movie clip from existing layers:

Expand the Timeline if necessary so you can see all layers to be included.

Drag in the first frame of the Timeline to select all the layers to include.

Click the Edit menu, point to Timeline, and then click Copy Frames.

Click the Insert menu, then click New Symbol. Enter a name and select the Movie Clip option.

Select the new symbol, click the Edit menu, point to Timeline, then click Paste Frames. The selected layers are now part of the movie clip symbol you just created.


Selecting frames to create a movie clip symbol

This figure shows the layer column of the Timeline with multiple layers selected. These contiguous layers were selected by clicking in the first frame of the first layer to select and dragging down to select the remaining layers.

If the layers are noncontiguous, hold down the Ctrl or Command key and click in the first frame of the Timeline for each layer to select

You can also click the first layer to select it, hold down the Shift key, and click in the last layer to select, which will select everything in between the two endpoints.


Pasting frames to the movie clip

After copying the frames to the clipboard and creating the new movie clip symbol, make sure the new symbol is selected. Click the Paste Frames command to paste all of the layers into the symbol.

Note that, after the frames are pasted, they still retain their original layer names and structures. If you used the standard Copy command instead of Copy Frames to copy them to the clipboard, they would be pasted as one single layer containing all of the elements.


Create a movie clip from another movie clip symbol If you have a movie clip symbol for one section

of your document that is very similar to the content required for another section, you can copy the first one to create a duplicate clip to use for the other section.

All you have to do then is edit the second movie clip symbol to contain the required content for the new section.

To do so: Select the clip to be copied in the library. Click the Options menu and then click Duplicate. Provide a name for the new movie clip symbol and

edit it before dragging it to the Stage.


Customize library symbols by editing them There are three types of symbol-editing

modes that can be performed in Flash. Edit – Edits a symbol in isolation. You see

only the symbol elements on the Stage. Edit in Place – Edits a symbol while you see

it positioned on the Stage along with the rest of the elements in the scene being edited.

Edit in New Window – Edits a symbol in isolation with only the actual symbol visible.


How to enter a specific editing mode To enter Edit mode:

Select a symbol and click Edit Symbols on the Edit menu, or

Double-click the symbol in the library. To enter Edit in Place mode:

Select a symbol and click Edit in Place on the Edit menu, or Double-click an instance of the symbol on the Stage.

To enter Edit in New Window mode: Select a symbol and click Edit Selected on the Edit menu, or

Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) on the symbol and select Edit in New Window from the pop-up menu.


Exiting symbol-editing mode

After you have made the desired changes to your symbols, you can exit editing mode in one of two ways: For Edit and Edit in Place mode, click

the scene name on the information bar at the top of the Stage.

For Edit in New Window mode, close the editing window.


Editing considerations

When you edit a symbol, the changes you make will apply to all instances of the symbol throughout the movie document.

One you exit editing mode, you cannot use the Undo command to reverse the changes you made to the symbol.


Use the Align panel to align text to objects or the Stage You can control how objects on the Stage line

up with each other or with specific areas of the Stage using the Align panel.

You can open the Align panel by clicking the Window menu, then Design Panel, then click Align.

Select the object(s) to be aligned, then choose one of the alignment options shown in the Align panel.

When the To Stage option is toggled on, objects will align using the selected alignment option to the whole area of the Stage.


Summary

In this lesson, you learned: How to create a movie clip symbol out of

existing layers and from another movie clip symbol.

To work in symbol-editing mode to edit a movie clip instance.

To edit and align text boxes.

working with movie clips – lesson 61 working with movie clips lesson 6

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