Adobe Flash CS4

Click here to download the Adobe Flash Professional CS4 trial version free. Then take our Macromedia Flash Professional CS4 tutorial. Our Macromedia Flash Professional CS4 tutorial covers creating graphics, working with layers, and adding motion, sound, and text to your Flash Professional CS4 movie.

Display a Grid

In the exercises that follow, you will be drawing. Displaying a grid of horizontal and vertical lines is often helpful when drawing.

Display a Grid

1. Choose View > Grid > Edit Grid from the menu or press Ctrl+Alt+G. The Grid dialog box appears.

2. Click the Color box and then choose gray to make the grid lines gray.
3. Choose Show Grid to cause the grid to appear.
4. Choose Snap to Grid to cause the edges of your drawing to align with the grid lines.
5. Set the Horizontal field to 20 px to separate horizontal lines by 20 pixels.
6. Set the Vertical field to 20 px to separate vertical lines by 20 pixels.
7. Set the Snap Accuracy to Normal to tell Flash how close your drawing has to be to the gridline for Flash to use the gridline to determine where to place the drawing.
8. Click OK. Flash creates a grid on the Stage.

Work with the Property Inspector

The Property inspector, which is located on the Properties tab, is one of the most frequently used panels in Flash. You use it to set the attributes of objects as you work. If the Property inspector is not open:

• Choose Window > Properties from the menu. The Property inspector appears on the right side of the window.

The Property inspector is one of many panels found in Flash. When you are not working in a panel, you can collapse it. To collapse a panel, click the Collapse icon . The Collapse icon turns into an Expand icon . To open the panel again, click the Expand icon .

The Property inspector for a particular tool or object may be divided into several sections. Each section heading is preceded by a triangle. Clicking the triangle toggles the section between open and closed . When a section is open, you can set options.

Work with the Rectangle Tool

In the exercise that follows, you will use the Rectangle tool to draw a rectangle. Symbols are reusable objects you store in the Library. Later in this tutorial you will turn the rectangle into the button symbol that movie viewers press to start the movie.

After you choose the Rectangle tool, the Rectangle tool options appear in the Property inspector. There are two color boxes. You use the color boxes to set the stroke and fill colors. The stroke color outlines your drawing. The fill color fills the center of your drawing. Stroke lines can be thin, solid, dashed, and so on. You choose the line style. You can also set the line thickness. The line thickness can be any value from 1 to 200; the larger the number, the thicker the line.

The corners of a rectangle can be squared-off or rounded. For squared-off corners, set the Rectangle Corner Radius fields to 0. For rounded corners, set the field values to any value between -100 and +100. Negative numbers round inward; positive numbers round outward. The further the number is from 0, the rounder the corner.

Draw a Rectangle

1. Choose the Rectangle tool .

2. Activate the Property inspector (click the Properties tab).
3. Click the Stroke Color box and then click the color white to choose white as your stroke color.
4. Click the Fill Color box and then click the color blue to choose blue as your fill color.
5. Type 3.00 in the Stroke Height field to set the line thickness.
6. Choose Solid from the drop-down menu in the Style field to select the Stroke line style.
7. Under Rectangle Options, type 10.00 in the first Rectangle Corners Radius field to set the corner radius. Flash sets the values for the other Rectangle Corners Radius fields to the same value.
8. Click on the Stage and drag diagonally to draw the rectangle. Make the rectangle two grid boxes high and five grid boxes wide.

Note: You can also use the Modifiers area of the Tools panel to set the stroke and fill colors.