Chapter 3: Getting To Know The Workspace - MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-GETTING STARTED WITH FLASH Getting Started

CHAPTER 3
Getting to Know the Workspace
The Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 workspace
consists of a Stage on which you place media content, a main toolbar with menus and commands
for controlling application functionality, panels and a Property inspector for organizing and
modifying media assets, and a Tools panel with tools for creating and modifying vector graphic
content. For more information on the workspace, see the following sections:
Moving the view of the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Using the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Using frames and keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Using layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
About the main toolbar and edit bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Using the Tools panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Using the grid, guides, and rulers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Using panels and the Property inspector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
You can select preferences to modify the default Flash workspace. Context menus and keyboard
shortcuts provide ways for you to easily navigate the Flash authoring environment. Special
workspace accessibility features provide additional keyboard shortcuts that let you navigate panels
and dialog boxes without using the mouse. See the following sections:
Setting preferences in Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Customizing keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Using context menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Accessibility in the Flash authoring environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
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