Tutorial overview

In this tutorial you will build on the basic skills you learned in the lessons and create a more complex piece of work. You'll create a home page for a refrigerator magnet company that features animated symbols, animated buttons, and a way to store email addresses.

Understanding and taking advantage of the power of symbols is crucial to learning Flash. This tutorial emphasizes more advanced uses of symbols. You'll learn how to:

Create animated movie clip symbols and button symbols
Use editable text fields in symbols
Assemble a movie
Attach actions to buttons that control other content
Publish a movie

You'll also learn some animation tricks you might find useful in future projects.


 
Before you begin

This tutorial requires basic Flash skills that are covered by the seven lessons included in Flash. The lessons are available by choosing Help > Lessons. Be sure to complete these lessons before starting this tutorial.

Lesson 2, Drawing
Lesson 3, Symbols
Lesson 4, Layers
Lesson 5, Text
Lesson 6, Buttons
Lesson 7, Sound
Lesson 8, Animation


 
Preview the completed movie

Begin by taking a look at the finished movie to become familiar with what you'll be working towards.

1 In Flash, choose File > Open. Navigate to the Flash application folder, then open the Tutorial folder and select Tutorial Finish.fla.
Do not edit this movie, since it is already complete. You will edit an alternate version during the tutorial.
2 To run the movie, choose Control > Test Movie.
The movie opens with an animation that moves a photograph to the refrigerator and secures it with a crown magnet.
3 Pass the mouse over the buttons and notice that they animate and display the title of the content you'll see when you click them. Click the buttons to see additional content.
4 When you finish exploring the movie, close the movie window and then close the Tutorial Finish.fla file.

You can refer to the Tutorial Finish.fla file throughout the tutorial to make sure you've done the work correctly, or get back on track if you're lost.