Creating Animation; Fireworks Animation Features; Opening An Animation - MACROMEDIA FIREWORKS 2-USING FIREWORKS Use Manual

Creating animation

Fireworks provides all the tools you need to create
animated GIFs. Fireworks animation capabilities are
perfect for creating web banner ads or for adding simple
motion to your web site. Open and edit existing
animated GIFs or create new animated GIFs from
scratch.
An animated GIF is a GIF89a file containing multiple
images. These images act as successive frames of
animation when the GIF is viewed in a web browser.

Fireworks animation features

These are the five primary Fireworks features for
creating animation:
The Frames panel is the backbone for
Frames panel—
animation. Organize, manage, and preview successive
frames of animation.
When creating animations, the Layers
Layers panel—
panel becomes a strong counterpart to the Frames panel.
Organize parts of the drawing on layers and share entire
layers across all frames, easily creating backgrounds or
static objects.
Use the VCR control buttons at the
VCR controls—
bottom of any document window to easily flip through
frames of the document or to play a preview of the
animation directly in the document window.
Symbols and instances—
to simplify the animation process. Make a symbol of any
object or group. Then, create instances of that symbol on
other frames that may be moved or transformed
independently of the symbol. However, if a new color is
applied to the symbol, or if part of the symbol is edited,
then all instances update as well.
Animation panel of the Export Preview—
Animation panel of the Export Preview to set frame
delay, disposal method, frame visibility, and looping for
an animation.
124 Chapter 4
Use symbols and instances
Use the

Opening an animation

Open existing animated GIFs in Fireworks and edit
them. When an animated GIF is opened, Fireworks:
Creates a shared layer named "Background" based
on common pixels found in more than half of the
imported frames.
Places the animated components from each frame
onto a separate frame of the Frames panel. These
components are placed as image objects on a layer
named GIF.
To edit an animated GIF, choose a frame on the Frames
panel and make changes.
Opening multiple files as an animation
Fireworks can create an animation based on a group of
image files. For example, if you are creating a banner ad
based on several existing graphics, use File > Open
Multiple to open those graphics and place them on
separate frames of the same document.
To open multiple files as an animation:
Choose File > Open Multiple.
1
The Open Multiple Files dialog box appears.
Browse to a file or files and add files to open as
2
frames in the animation.
Click Add to add a file to the list.
Click Add All to add all files in the current
folder to the list.
Select a file from the added file list and click
Remove to remove it from the added file list.
Check Open as Animation and click OK.
3
Fireworks opens the files into a single document,
each file placed on a separate frame in the order they
were chosen in the Open Multiple Files dialog box.