Beginner's Guide to Adobe Flash/Interface/Panels

Adobe flash cs4 is used to create animation, web applications, games, videos and other programs or applications which can support flash content

Tools

The Tools menu is probably the most used panel in Flash. In it are the tools needed to manipulate items on the stage. It can also be used to do actions on the timeline.

Here are the main tools and their uses;

• Selection Tool (v) - Selecting whole objects and moving them.
• Subselection Tool - Selecting partial objects.
• Line Tool - Drawing straight lines.
• Lasso Tool - Selecting irregular shaped pieces of an object
• Pen Tool - Drawing non-straight and curved lines.
• Text Tool (t) - Inputting a text box onto the stage.
• Oval Tool - Drawing oval and circle shapes. (Drag + Holding Shift = Circles)
• Shape Tool - By default draws rectangles. (Drag + Holding Shift = Squares)
• Pencil Tool - Free drawing thin lines.
• Brush Tool- Free drawing brush shapes.
• Free Transform - Scale, rotate, and skew an object.
• Fill Transform - Distort the gradient fill of an object.
• Stroke Tool - Change the color and size of a stroke.
• Fill Tool - Change the color of a fill.
• Eyedropper - Sample a color from the stage.
• Eraser - Use a brush to erase parts of an object.
• Hand Tool - Used to drag the stage around to see not visible parts of it.
• Zoom - Zoom in or out.

Properties Panel

The properties panel is used to modify the characteristics of pre-existing objects on stage.

Other Panels

Components, Inspector, tools panel, workspace...