Flash: Building Blocks

The Rectangle/Oval/Polygon Tool

To draw a rectangle, oval, or polygon in Flash, simply use the Rectangle Tool. If you look at the bottom right hand of the Rectangle Tool, you will see a small arrow. If you click on that arrow, a pop-up menu will appear allowing you to select different shapes to draw. The default is the rectangle.

To use the button, simply click it, click an area on the stage you wish the shape to appear, then drag until it is the size you want, and release the mouse. As with other tools, the Property Inspector allows you to change the properties of the shape.

The Pencil Tool

Sometimes you want to draw like you would on a piece of paper. For that, you would use the Pencil Tool. Fortunately for those of us who can't draw a smooth or straight line, Flash has built-in options to help us do so. If you look at the bottom right hand corner of the Tools Pane window, you will see the Pencil Mode Button.

This symbol tells you that Flash will straighten your lines for you automatically. To change that, click on the little arrow next to the Pencil Mode button, and select either the S looking figure for smoothed lines, or the squiggly line to draw freehand, without any assistance from Flash.

The Brush Tool

So you can paint like Picasso. However, every time you put your brush on the monitor, it just gets it all gooey and you're laughed at by your nerdy computer friend who helps you fix it. Don't fret; Flash has a handy-dandy paint tool built in for just such an occasion.

Just as you can adjust the lines of the pencil tool, you can do the same with the Brush Tool. Located in the same area as the Pencil Mode button, the Brush Size, Brush Shape, and Brush Mode buttons allow you to modify the look and feel of your brush.

The Ink Bottle and Paint Bucket Tools

These two tools look exactly like you think they would and both perform a similar function, with slight differences. The Ink Bottle changes the attributes of the outline of an object (for example, the lines of a rectangle), while the Paint Bucket changes the inside fill of the object. To choose the properties for each tool, use the Properties Inspector. Once you have chosen your color and/or stroke style, simply do the following:

• Using the Ink Bottle: Click on the outline of the object you wish to change

• Using the Paint Buck: Click inside the object you wish to change.

The Eyedropper Tool

If a color isn't readily available to you in Flash, or if you don't want to go through the trouble of finding it and the color is within an object you have already placed on the stage, simply select the Eyedropper Tool, click on the color in the object you wish to use, and the Eyedropper will select that color and give its attributes to the Paint Bucket tool.

Eraser

Much like Britney Spears when she married K-Fed, you find that you made a mistake. Never fear. The Eraser tool can solve your problems (if only we could use it on K-Fed's album!). You can either erase the entire stage by double-clicking the Eraser Tool, or to erase a specific part of the stage, simply select the Eraser and rub it back and forth over the area, like you would on a chalkboard.

The Hand Tool

The Hand Tool looks like a hand and its usage is pretty simple. Sometimes when you zoom in on the page (discussed below), you need to drag the stage around to view other areas of it. To do so, simply click the Hand Tool, click on the stage, and drag it until you see the area you are searching for.

The Zoom Tool

You can zoom in and out of the stage using the Zoom Tool. It gives you a minimum zoom of 8% and a maximum zoom of 2000%.

The Properties Inspector

The Properties Inspector is located at the bottom of the screen, below the stage. It allows you to adjust the properties of a variety of things within Flash, including objects, tools, the timeline, etc. Whatever object you currently have selected, the Property Inspector will display its attributes.

There are two other default panes, the Color/Swatches Pane and the Library Pane, which will be covered more in depth in later articles. For now, just know that the Color/Swatches pane allows you to easily manage the colors within your movie, and the Library pane allows you easy access to the different objects you create and store within your library.

That concludes the basic overview of Flash CS3 Windows and Toolbars. In the next tutorial we will cover how to create a basic web page in Flash CS3.