Free ebook on Flash Programming: Using Flash.pdf

Whether you're designing motion graphics or building data-driven applications, Flash has the tools to produce great results and deliver the best user experience across ultiple platforms and devices.

This guide is designed to introduce you to Flash. The tutorial in this guide leads you through the process of creating a simple Flash application.

Flash includes many features designed specifically to enable greater expressiveness in the look and feel of your finished projects.

• Gradient enhancements New controls let you apply complex gradients to objects on the Stage. You can add up to 15 colors to a gradient, precisely control the location of the gradient focal point, and apply other parameters to the gradient. The workflow for applying gradients has also been simplified. For more information, see "Working with solid colors and gradient fills in the Color Mixer" on page 117.
• Adjustable gradient focal point The Fill Transform tool now includes an editable focal point that lets you position the focal point (center) of a gradient fill applied to an object. For more information, see "Transforming gradient and bitmap fills" on page 121.
• Object Drawing model You can now create shapes directly on the Stage that will not interfere with other overlapping shapes. Previously in Flash, all shapes on the same layer of the Stage could affect the outlines of other shapes that they overlapped. When you create a shape with the new Object Drawing model, the shape does not cause changes to other shapes that exist underneath the new shape. For more information, see "About Flash drawing models" on page 131........more

• Rectangle and Oval Tool Settings dialog box The new Rectangle and Oval Tool Settings dialog box lets you specify the width and height of ovals and rectangles, as well as the corner radius of rectangles so that you can create rounded-corner rectangles. To activate the dialog box, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Macintosh) to select the Oval and Rectangle drawing tools on the Stage. When you click OK to verify your settings, Flash draws an appropriately sized oval or rectangle where you clicked the Stage. For more information, see "Drawing straight lines, ovals, and rectangles" on page 137.
• Enhanced strokes Joins and caps on strokes are now drawn more cleanly and precisely. A join is the place where two strokes come together. A cap is the end point of a stroke that does not join with another stroke. In addition, the maximum size of a stroke has been increased from 10 to 200 pixels, and you can now color strokes using a gradient fill. For more information, see "Using the Stroke Color and Fill Color controls in the Property inspector" on page 115.
• New curve algorithm The Pencil tool and Brush tool now let you select the degree of smoothing to apply to curves that you draw with those tools. By increasing the amount of smoothing, you can reduce the number of points used to calculate the curve, which results in smaller SWF files. For more information, see "Optimizing curves" on page 149.
• Text handles A new, improved method for working with text includes text boxes that you can resize. You can more easily reposition text blocks with text handles. For more information, see "Creating text" on page 162.
• Improved Fireworks importer The importer for Macromedia Fireworks PNG files now supports a greater number of the properties that you can apply to graphics in Fireworks. When you import Fireworks files into Flash, these graphics properties remain intact and editable in Flash. Among the properties available in Fireworks that you can now import into Flash are blend modes and filters (called effects in Fireworks). For more information, see "Importing Fireworks PNG files" on page 195.

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