Creating Web Graphics and Animation > Assigning Flash actions |
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Assigning Flash actions
You can assign Flash actions to artwork you create in FreeHand in order to use the FreeHand artwork in interactive Flash movies. You export the FreeHand document with Flash actions as a SWF file, for display in the Flash Player.
In an interactive movie, your audience uses the keyboard, the mouse, or both to jump to different parts of a movie, move objects, and perform many other interactive operations.
To assign Flash actions in FreeHand, you use the Action area of the Navigation panel. The Action area lists a subset of actions from ActionScript, the Flash programming language. The following actions are available for use in FreeHand:
The Go To action jumps to a frame or scene. (Frames or scenes are created from layers when you export an animation to Flash.)
The Play and Stop actions play and stop movies.
The Print action specifies which frames in a movie users can print directly from the Flash Player.
The Full Screen action displays the movie in the Flash Player in full-screen mode, rather than normal mode.
The Start/Stop Drag action makes a specified movie clip draggable when a specified event occurs, and stops the draggable behavior when the opposite action occurs. For example, if you assign On Press as the Start Drag event, FreeHand will automatically assign On Release as the Stop Drag event.
The Load Movie and Unload Movie actions load and unload additional movies when the current movie is playing (available only with documents that have two or more pages).
The Tell Target action controls other movies and movie clips that were loaded into the current movie with the Load Movie action (available only with documents that have two or more pages). FreeHand allows only one level of loaded movies; thus you can assign only one movie to load at a time.
When you assign an action, you also select an event that will cause the action to run when the movie is played. Events that can trigger an action during movie playback are the user clicking the mouse or the movie playhead reaching a specified frame.
For some actions, including Go To, Print, Load/Unload Movie, and Tell Target, you also select parameters that define how the action is to be applied.
To assign actions to artwork in FreeHand:
1 |
In the Document window, select the object or objects to which you want to assign actions. |
2 |
Choose Window > Panels > Navigation. |
3 |
For Action, select an action from the pop-up menu. |
4 |
For Event, from the pop-up menu select the event that will trigger the action. |
Note: For Start/Stop Drag, the Frame Action event is disabled. |
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5 |
If you selected Go To, Print, Load/Unload Movie, or Tell Target, select Parameters: |
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For all actions, select an option from the list of current document pages in the first Parameter pop-up menu. |
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For the Go To or Print action, select from the current document layers in the second Parameter pop-up menu, to specify which part of the document the playhead will move to or which part of the document will be printed when the trigger event is performed. |
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For the Tell Target action, select an action from the second Parameter pop-up menu to control playback of another movie: GoTo, Play, Stop, or Print. If you selected GoTo or Print, select from the current layers in the third Parameter pop-up menu to specify which part of the document the playhead will move to or which part of the document will be printed. |
6 |
Repeat steps 3 through 5 to assign additional actions. |
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