Grouping Panes

As we open more and more panels, it will sometimes happen that you can barely see the “Stage” through these panels.

Then you have a number of possibilities.
1. You can close it by clicking the X icon at the top right in the panel.  But if you frequently need this panel, you would be spending more time at this again to open, close, open, close, etc..

2. You can minimize this pane by clicking the “Collapse” button that we find to the left or the “Close” button.
And

3. We can open a group panel.

For this also we have a number of possibilities.
1. We can make a group of panes so that these panels can be stacked, as it were on or next to each other.
Click and drag the tab bar above, this is the dark gray bar, from one pane to another panel.  Now you think of where you want to drag this panel.  If you want to place this over another panel, drag it to the top of the second panel. Once you see a blue line, release the mouse button.

If you want to place this to the left of the second panel, drag it to the left of the second panel.

Or else you can place this to the right side by dragging it to the right side of the panel.

 

If you wish to place this at the bottom, drag it to the bottom of the second panel. The choice is yours.

Wherever you drag it, once you see a bluish color, release the mouse button.

A second possibility is grouping them under tabs.

Click and drag to move the second panel above the first pane. When a blue box appears on the first panel, release the mouse button.

The panels are now divided among various tabs.

Click the tab to bring it to the foreground.

You obviously have seen this group pane under the standard panels that have already been opened by “Flash”, especially the “Properties panel” and “Library”.

You always have the possibility of the changing the location of the panels. Click and drag the tab for this title to the desired position.

In case you’ve made a mess, you have the option to revert everything back in its original position.

Just click the button “Switch to workspace” and select the workspace in which you want to work.

 

The “Timeline”

The “Timeline” is the heart of our animation.

The “Timeline” consists of several frames (1), each of which represents a particular point in time.

If you want to insert or remove an object from a point on the “Timeline”, then put it in a “Main frame”, sometimes called “Key frame”. This is the literal translation of the English name “Keyframe”

Since we are here in this course work with the Dutch version of “Flash”, I will in future still use the name “Main frame”.

If you decide for some action to happen on a point on the “Timeline” , for example the movie to stop, then put this “ActionScript” code in a “Keyframe”.

A “Main frame” may contain a little, but may also be empty.

A “Main frame” that is empty is indicated by a white circle (2), a “Main frame” that contains an object is provided with a black circle (3).

A “Keyframe” that only contains “ActionScript” code shows the letter ‘a’ above the white circle (4).

If you have an object “Keyframe” and “ActionScript” code, then the letter ‘a’ appears above the black circle.

This is perfectly possible. Still, I recommend having the “ActionScript” code in its own “Layer”.

Besides, for each object that you place in the “Timeline”, you can create a separate “Layer”. This means less clutter, and it does nothing to the size of your file (in KB) when we start publishing (more about “Layers” in one of the following lessons).

To make things even better organized for yourself, open “Layer”s in a certain folder. As you see in the picture below I have all the “Layers”, where text is placed in a folder. Just click the button “New Folder”, and click and drag the “Layers” in this folder.

To add a layer, click the button “New Layer” at the bottom of the “Timeline”.

Give the different “Layers” a meaningful name by double-clicking.

Same goes for the folders, otherwise you will have Folder 1, Folder 2 … or Layer 1, Layer 2 … and you know half an hour after working that its not what you can find.

To remove a “Layer”, select the “Layer” and click the “Delete” button at the bottom of the “Timeline”

Tip: The quickest way to frame a “Keyframe” (“Keyframe”) is to make the frame and press the F6 key on your keyboard.

What you should remember out of this and the previous lesson:

1. The difference between a frame and a “Main frame”
2. What is a panel, how to add, remove, or give a name to new panels.
3. Same goes for folders.
4. What is the frame rate (fps) of your movie, and how you adjust it.
5. How do you change the size of your video?
6. How do you set the background color of the film?

That’s all, not much huh!

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