Previewing An Animation; Exporting Your Animation - MACROMEDIA FIREWORKS MX 2004-USING FIREWORKS Use Manual

To distribute the tweened objects to separate frames, choose Distribute to Frames and click OK.
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If you choose not to distribute the objects to separate frames, you can do it later by selecting all
instances and clicking the Distribute to Frames button in the Frames panel.
Note: In most cases, using animation symbols is preferable to tweening. For more information, see
"Working with animation symbols" on page

Previewing an animation

You can preview an animation while you are working on it to check its progress. You can also
preview an animation after optimization to see how it will look in a web browser.
To preview an animation in the workspace:
•
Use the frame controls that appear at the bottom of the Document window.
Frame controls
Keep the following in mind when previewing animations:
•
To set how long each frame appears in the Document window, enter frame delay settings in the
Frames panel.
•
Frames excluded from the export do not appear in the preview.
•
Previewing the animation in the Original view displays the full-resolution source graphic, not
the optimized preview used for the exported file.
To preview an animation in Preview view:
Click the Preview button at the upper left of the Document window.
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Use the frame controls.
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Note: Previewing animations in 2-Up or 4-Up view is not recommended.
To preview an animation in a web browser:
•
Choose File > Preview in Browser, and choose a browser from the submenu.
Note: Animated GIF must be selected as the Export file format in the Optimize panel, or no motion
will be visible when you preview the document in your browser. This is required even if you plan to
import your animation into Flash as a SWF or Fireworks PNG file.

Exporting your animation

After you set up the symbols and frames that make up your animation, you are ready to export
the file as an animation. Before you export the files, you need to enter a few settings to make your
animation load more easily and play more smoothly. You can set playback settings like looping
and transparency and then use optimization to make your exported file smaller and easier
to download.
Note: If you plan to import your animation into Macromedia Flash for further editing, you do not need
to export it. Flash can directly import Fireworks PNG source files. For more information, see
"Working with Macromedia Flash MX 2004" in Working with Other Applications on the Fireworks
Support Center at www.macromedia.com/support/fireworks/.
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Exporting your animation 221