Tutorial > Publish the movie

Publish the movie

Congratulations! You've nearly completed your movie. For the finishing touch, you will use the Publish command to create a Web-compatible version, with the SWF extension.

If you use the Publish command with the default settings, Flash prepares your file for the Web. Flash will Publish the SWF and an HTML file with the tags necessary to display the SWF.

Once you have entered all of the necessary Publish Settings options, you can repeatedly export to all selected formats at once by simply choosing File > Publish. Flash stores the publish settings you specify with the movie file, so each movie can have its own settings.


 
Test movie download performance

For a Flash movie to play correctly over the Internet, a frame must download before the movie reaches that frame. If the movie reaches a frame that hasn't downloaded, it pauses until the data arrives. The low bandwidth of Flash files, however, promotes fast downloads.

You can use the Bandwidth Profiler to test your movie and identify where pauses might occur. The Bandwidth Profiler graphically shows how much data is sent from each frame in the movie, according to the selected modem speed.

1 Choose Control > Test Movie.
Flash exports the movie as a SWF file and opens it in a new window.
2 From the Debug menu, select a modem speed to determine the download rate that Flash will simulate.
You can also choose Customize to enter a download rate.
3 Choose View > Bandwidth Profiler to see the SWF with a download performance chart.
Each shaded bar represents a frame in your movie. The height of the bar represents the frame's size in bytes and kilobytes. If a bar extends above the red line, the movie might wait for that frame to load.

Note: Although the Bandwidth Profiler does not indicate any serious download problems with the tutorial movie, you can optimize your movie for faster downloads. See Optimizing movies for details.

4 When you finish viewing the Bandwidth Profiler, choose View > Bandwidth Profiler to deselect it. Close the test window to return to the authoring environment.


 
Use the Publish command

Save your movie and choose File > Publish.

Flash publishes your movie by creating a SWF file, and possibly additional files, based on the attributes in the Publish Settings dialog box. You'll find the published files in your My_kite folder. That's how simple it is to publish your movie for Web playback.


 
View publish settings

Using the Publish Settings dialog box, it's easy to reconfigure the way your file publishes.

1 To view your publish settings, choose File > Publish Settings.
Flash is configured, by default, to create a supporting HTML file that displays the Flash movie or an alternate image.
When you select a format that requires additional settings, a new tab appears.


 
Change publish settings

By default, Flash gives the SWF file the same name as the FLA file. Since you are creating the site for Orbit kites, you'll tell Flash to name the SWF OrbitKites.swf.

1 On the Formats tab of the Publish Settings dialog box, deselect Use Default Names.
2 In the Flash (.swf) text box, select the existing text and type OrbitKites.swf, then click OK.
When you publish your movie again, Flash will create a file named OrbitKites.swf.