Adobe Flash —

Use the Movie Explorer to view the document structure

The Movie Explorer helps you arrange, locate, and edit media. With its hierarchical tree structure, the Movie Explorer provides information about the organization and flow of a document.

1.
Select Window > Movie Explorer.

If necessary, enlarge the Movie Explorer to view the tree structure within the pane.

The Movie Explorer filtering buttons display or hide information.
2.
Click the pop-up menu in the title bar of the Movie Explorer, and select Show Movie Elements and Show Symbol Definitions, if they're not already selected.
3.
Configure the filtering buttons, along the top of the Movie Explorer, so the only ones selected are Show Buttons, Movie Clips, and Graphics; Show Action Scripts; and Show Video, Sounds, and Bitmaps.

If you move your mouse pointer over a button, a tooltip displays the name of the button.

Examine the list to view some of the assets included in the document, and to see their relationship to other assets.
4.
In the Movie Explorer pane, expand Actions for Play to view ActionScript that Flash created when you added the Play video control behavior.
5.
To close the Movie Explorer, click its close box.

Test the document

As you author a document, you should save and test it frequently to ensure the Flash content plays as expected. When you test the SWF file, click the video control buttons to see if the video stops, plays, and rewinds as expected.

1.
Save the document (File > Save) and select Control > Test Movie.

The Flash content plays in a SWF file window. Although .fla is the extension for documents in the authoring environment, .swf is the extension for tested, exported, and published Flash content.
2.
When you finish viewing the SWF content, close the SWF file window to return to the authoring environment.

Find help

The lessons provide an introduction to Flash, and suggest ways that you can use features to create exactly the kind of document required. For comprehensive information about a feature, procedure, or process described in the lessons, see the Help tab of the Help panel (Help > Flash Help).

Summary

Congratulations on creating a Flash document that includes graphics, a video, and video control behaviors. In a few minutes, you learned how to accomplish the following:

  • Tour the user interface

  • Dock and undock panels

  • Change the background and Stage size

  • Change your view of the Stage

  • View your document library

  • Add graphics to the Stage

  • Add video

  • View object properties

  • Add video control behaviors

  • Use the Movie Explorer to view the document structure

  • Test the document

  • Find help

To learn more about Flash, take another lesson.