Duplicate “Symbols”

We can duplicate a “Symbol” by right-clicking the “Symbol” in the “Library” list and selecting “Duplicate” from the drop-down menu.
This opens the “Duplicate Symbol” dialog where you give it another name, and possibly a different type.

This places an exact copy of the “Symbol” in the library.
Editing this copy will NOT change the original.

 

Copy Instance

When we copy an instance we have two options when pasting.

Select the instance to copy.

Select “Edit” in the menu bar and click the “Copy” button from the drop-down menu.
Or for those of us who want to work faster, they also select the first instance, and click the shortcut Ctrl + C on their keyboard.

As we have said, for pasting we have two options.
Select “Edit” in the menu bar and select “Paste in the middle” or “Paste in Place”.

“Paste in the middle” pastes the copy in the center of the “Stage”.
“Paste in Place” will copy the exact same position in the “Stage” as the original.

 

Instance “Swap”

When an instance is selected on the “Stage”, we have as you undoubtedly would have already noted, the “Swap” in the “Properties window”.
We use this to change the “Symbol” on the “Stage” quickly.
A mouth is a good example.
You have a “Symbol” of the mouth which is located in the “face” “Symbol” .
If we want this mouth to move, we need several “Symbols” of this mouth, for example: open, closed, surprised and perhaps a few others.

Now, when you head for each frame again another “Symbol” of the mouth should drag on the “Stage”, then this mouth, I think, is not always in the same position.

Here, “Flash” has a solution.
The “Modify” button.

 

If you click, it opens the “Symbol Swap” dialog, where you find all “Symbols” from your “Library”.
So the only thing you need to do is to choose a different mouth, and clicking OK.

 

“Symbol” convert to shape

If you have a “Symbol” where you want to drag the “Symbol” onto the “Stage” back again, you right-click the instance and choose “Split” in the drop-down menu.

This is exactly the same as a sign of a merged form, as we saw in Lesson 7.

 

Animation from the main “Timeline” into a “Movie clip Symbol”

When you create “frame by frame” animation in the main “Timeline” and you want to reuse them, or you want to manipulate them as a body, you must select and save these frames as a “Movie Clip Symbol”.

How we do it

Select all the frames of the animation on the main “Timeline” that you want to put in a “Movie Clip Symbol”.
Just click the first frame, hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard pressed and click the last frame.

Right-click one of the selected frames, and select “Copy Frames” from the drop-down menu.

Click the “New Symbol” button at the bottom of the “Library”.

In the dialog that appears, give the “Symbol” a name, and select the type.
When an animation is completed, you choose the best for the type of “Movie Clip”.

Click the OK button.

The new “Symbol” will open in edit mode.

Right-click the first frame, and select “Paste Frames” in the drop-down menu.

 

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