Application Interface Overview

In this lesson, we'll examine some of the history of Flash Professional and what it can be used for.

This lesson explains the basics of how the course is organized and how to access course assets.

Every new version of Flash Professional brings with it new features and enhancements. In this lesson, we'll explore what is new in this latest version of the program.

This lesson looks at the Flash Professional Welcome screen, which lets you access several key features.

Flash Professional uses a number of file formats for both authoring and output. In this lesson, we'll look at some of the file formats you'll encounter the most when dealing with Flash content.

Help is immediately accessible in Flash Professional if you know where to look. You'll see how to access this feature in this lesson.

Like nearly all applications, Flash Professional includes an application menu. In this lesson, you'll get an overview of the menu and the commands within it.

The toolbar contains all of the tools available in Flash Professional. In this lesson, we'll have a look at the toolbar and how the tools are grouped within it.

This lesson explores the Stage, which is where everything visible happens in regard to Flash content. We'll also look at the pasteboard and how it relates to the Stage.

Any motion performed in Flash Professional takes advantage of the Timeline, and you'll get an overview of the Timeline and how it works in this lesson.

Panels expose numerous useful features in Flash Professional for organized access. In this lesson we'll look at some of the more useful panels.

The Properties Inspector exposes object properties based on contextual selections. This lesson provides an overview of this panel and demonstrates how the contents adapt to whatever is currently selected.

The ability to manage colors and swatches is important in any application that deals with the creation of visual elements. This lesson demonstrates how these tools work in Flash Professional.

The Flash Professional application interface can be customized in many different ways, and these customizations can be preserved and recalled as needed through the concept of workspaces. This lesson will describe how to manage this feature.

This lesson looks at the selection tools available in Flash Professional: the Selection, Subselection, and Lasso tools.

The Line and Shape tools, not surprisingly, let you create lines and shapes. You'll learn how to work with them in this lesson.

In this lesson you'll learn when and how to use the Pencil, Brush, and Eraser tools.

The Paint Bucket and Ink Bottle tools are used to change the fill and stroke of an object. You'll see how they work in this lesson.

The Eyedropper tool lets you "sample" colors in an image. You'll be introduced to this simple but useful tool in this lesson.

In this lesson you'll see how to use the Hand and Zoom tools to move around within your projects.

This lesson looks at the Text tool, which allows you to create text elements on the Stage.

The Pen tool in Flash Professional is used to create paths and objects with fine precision. This lesson describes the use of the Pen tool, as well as the Anchor Point tool, which lets you exercise precise control over the paths and objects you create.

This lesson looks at the Free Transform and Gradient tools, demonstrating what they do and how to use them.

The 3D Rotation and Translation tools are often called 3D tools, but they are really more like "2.5D" tools that let you manipulate objects along X, Y, and Z axes, as you'll see in this video.

This lesson examines the Bone and Bind tools, which you can use to work with inverse kinematics and armatures in order to animate shapes.

In this lesson, we'll begin developing our Flash project by creating a new document and setting up the Stage.

In this lesson, we'll use the tools in Flash Professional to draw elements for use in our project.

This lesson covers the process of adding motion through the Flash Professional Timeline.

In this project lesson, we will add interactivity to our animation, allowing the user to interact with the project content.

Whenever you need to begin a new project in Flash Professional, the most common way of doing so is to create a new document. This lesson will demonstrate how to create a new document in Flash Professional CS6.

In addition to creating a new document from scratch, Flash Professional also gives you the ability to create a new project using a template. In this lesson, we'll have a look at some of the many types of templates that ship with Flash Professional CS6.

In this lesson, you'll see how to set up your guides and rulers in Flash Professional CS6. These can be very helpful in staying oriented and organized.

When developing Flash content, you will want to test frequently. This lesson provides an overview of the different methods of testing available.

This lesson explores the process of creating a project plan and how it relates to producing content with Flash Professional.

When working in Flash Professional, you can use both vector and bitmap image assets. This lesson demonstrates the differences between these two types of image files.

When drawing shapes in Flash Professional, you have the option of including both lines and fills. This lesson will demonstrate how to manage these two distinct shape properties.

Recent versions of Flash Professional have offered a choice in how shapes are drawn on the Stage: Merge mode and Object Drawing mode. In this lesson, you'll see the differences between these drawing modes.

Once a shape is created with Flash Professional tools, it can be easily modified using other tools. This lesson explores some of the possibilities that exist for modifying shape objects.

Flash Professional has a feature that allows you to group many objects together so that you can manipulate them all at the same time. In this lesson you'll see how to accomplish this.

In addition to drawing assets using tools in Flash Professional, you can also import assets created with other applications, as you'll see in this lesson.

Bitmap images in Flash Professional can be used as they are or converted into vectors. In this lesson we'll examine the benefits and pitfalls of this process.

Almost any complex object type in Flash Professional can be broken into simpler pieces. This lesson looks at how to perform this action with a variety of visual object types..

The Flash Professional Library is a powerful resource that contains all imported assets and symbols for use in your projects. This lesson will introduce you to the Library and how it works.

A graphic symbol in Flash Professional is a symbol that contains its own timeline tied to the root Timeline. In this video, you'll learn how to work with these graphic symbols.

This lesson looks at button symbols, which are symbols with special states that serve to mimic familiar button behaviors.

A movie clip symbol is the most powerful Symbol type in Flash Professional, and in this lesson you'll see why.

A sprite symbol is very similar to a movie clip symbol, but it has no timeline of its own and is generally lighter in weight. In this lesson we'll examine the special construction of this symbol.

Filter Effects can be applied to movie clip and sprite symbol instances to create blurs, glows, drop shadows, and other effects. This lesson demonstrates the use of these effects.

Blend modes in Flash Professional can be used on movie clip and sprite symbol instances that overlap other display objects in order to change the way they look. In this lesson you'll learn how to apply blend modes and see some of the effects that you can create with them.

When you want to display text in Flash Professional, the most straightforward way of doing so is to use the Text tool. In this lesson you'll see how to use this tool to create text fields on the Stage.

Text fields in Flash Professional can have a variety of different forms and uses. This lesson examines the different properties and uses of text fields.

Flash Professional includes an internal spell-checker. This lesson will demonstrate the use of this tool.

In this lesson you'll see how to apply filter effects to text fields to create blurs, glows, drop shadows, and other effects.

Flash Professional has a robust font embedding capability that allows you to embed unique typefaces and even specific characters in your projects. This lesson will demonstrate this capability.

The Text Layout Framework allows you a much greater amount of control over typography than "classic text" does. This lesson will provide an overview of these extended features.

Flash content is animated based on a system of frames. In this lesson, we'll explore the basics of frames and how to apply labels to frames to further organize content.

Layers are a Timeline construct in Flash Professional that allow you to position and animate content in an isolated and structured way. In this lesson, you'll learn how to use layers and see how to group multiple layers within folders.

This lesson looks at scenes, which allow you to effectively break the Timeline into a sequence of smaller timelines.

Traditional animation is done by drawing one frame of animation at a time and then playing them back in rapid succession. While Flash Professional offers a number of different mechanisms to simplify this process, it is also entirely possible to perform frame-by-frame animation, as this lesson will demonstrate.

Onion skinning is a function of the Flash Professional Timeline that allows you to see the "shadows" of adjacent frames when working with assets on the stage. This lesson demonstrates the usefulness of this feature.

Shape tweens, as the name implies, are used in the tweening of basic shape objects. This lesson will examine the unique adjustments you can make across the Timeline when working with shapes.

Classic tweens are an older form of motion tween that has been renamed in the past few versions of Flash Professional. This lesson will demonstrate the use of classic tweens.

Motion tweens are the most robust method of animating objects within Flash Professional. In this lesson, we'll have a look at how to create and manage this type of tween in the Timeline.

In this lesson you'll see how to produce some interesting effects by nesting animations within other animations.

The Motion Editor is a special panel that allows you to fine-tune any of the motion tweens you create in the Timeline. You'll get an overview of the Motion Editor in this lesson.

When using classic tweens, you can provide customized motion guides for an object to follow as it is animated. This lesson will show you how.

The Motion Presets panel contains a number of useful presets that can be applied to your project with a single click. This lesson provides an overview of motion presets and what they can be used for.

Shape hints are employed when you use a shape tween to direct the transformation of a shape to achieve the exact visual effect that you desire. This lesson explores the use of shape hints in Flash Professional.

Masking is a technique that allows you to hide portions of an object from view while displaying others. In this lesson you'll see how to use masking effectively in a project.

Using inverse kinematics (IK), you can create puppet-like armatures out of the various objects in your project. This lesson will provide an example of how to animate using IK.

Flash Professional makes it very easy to import sound files into a project. This lesson demonstrates how to go about this task.

There are many reasons you may want to include sound within button or movie clip symbols, such as creating interaction effects and animation events. This lesson will demonstrate a few ways of doing so.

In this lesson, you'll see how to use the Adobe Media Encoder (which is bundled with Flash Professional) to encode video files specifically for use within Flash.

It isn't often that you would want to embed video content within a Flash project, but it is useful in certain situations, such as when using small video segments. This lesson will demonstrate how to go about importing video files.

The Actions panel is the code editor you use when dealing with ActionScript in a Flash document. This lesson demonstrates the Actions panel and its use.

The most direct way to include ActionScript within Flash Professional is to write it directly on the Timeline. This lesson will demonstrate this approach and point out some of the drawbacks associated with it.

The Code Snippets panel in Flash Professional contains an abundance of ready-to-use code aligned to specific tasks. This lesson will demonstrate the use of this feature.

The most organized and structured way of writing ActionScript is through packages and classes. This lesson demonstrates how to take advantage of this powerful feature and bypass coding on the Timeline altogether.

Loading and controlling sound through ActionScript is fairly simple once you know how. This lesson demonstrates the methods required to perform this set of tasks properly.

Loading and controlling video is fairly straightforward as well. This lesson will look at ActionScript-driven video delivery through Flash.

When using Flash Professional to develop content for mobile devices, you now have a number of choices. This lesson will examine these target platforms.

There are certain snippets within the Code Snippets panel that are directed at mobile development. In this lesson, you'll see how to apply these snippets to your mobile projects.

This lesson looks at the Mobile Content Simulator, a new tool in Flash Professional CS6 that greatly speeds up the testing of mobile-specific APIs using enhanced simulation.

Testing mobile content on an actual device is the best assurance that your content will run as anticipated. This lesson provides an overview of how to test mobile content on the targeted hardware itself.

One of the simplest methods of debugging a project is to just trace out bits of text. In this lesson, you'll see how this is done.

This lesson looks at Flash Professional's built-in debugging tool, which enables you to look deep into your code while a project is running.

Mobile devices are an exciting new area for Flash development, but how is it possible to debug code that is executed on an external device? This lesson will explain.

There are two main types of errors you will encounter when debugging Flash content: compiler errors and runtime errors. This lesson will demonstrate how to deal with both.

This lesson outlines the steps that can be taken to optimize the output from Flash Professional in terms of the overall project and even individual assets.

In this lesson, we'll look at some of the settings and considerations particular to targeting the Flash Player.

In this lesson, we'll look at some of the settings and considerations particular to targeting Adobe AIR for desktop.

In this lesson, we'll look at some of the settings and considerations particular to targeting Adobe AIR for mobile devices.

A sprite sheet is an image file that contains all of the frames for a specific animation. For performance reasons, sprite sheets are heavily used in gaming for both HTML5 and Flash games. In this lesson, you'll see how to export a sprite sheet from Flash Professional.

Exporting a sequence of images from an animation can be useful in a number of cases, predominantly for gaming but also for integration with certain video editing software. In this lesson, you'll see how to export a series of PNG files from a library symbol.

This lesson looks at the CreateJS toolkit for Flash Professional CS6, an extension that allows you to publish animated content to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for playback in modern browsers without requiring the Flash Player to be installed.

Accessibility is a major concern among many organizations and something that should be considered at the start of any project. In this lesson, you'll see how to take steps to ensure that your Flash content is as accessible as possible.

In this closing lesson, you'll get a summary of what we've covered in this course and a few final thoughts.