Button
A button is a special type of symbol. It looks out for events and reacts to them. If the mouse is over the symbol it will display one graphic, if the mouse is clicking on the graphic it will display another. A button enables interactivity.
- Using the ‘Text Tool’ write ‘Click here’ on the stage.
- Select the text and press F8. IN the dialogue box that appears name it ‘Click here button’ and then select ‘Button’ behaviour. Click OK
NB The button symbol will now appear in the Library (Have a look in the Library CRTL+L). This is now stored as a graphic that can be ‘instanced’ many times.
The navigation of flash is very important. It is easy to get lost. Look at the top left of the interface this will tell you where you are in the movie. At the moment we are in ‘Scene 1’.
We now want to edit the states of our button
- Double click the symbol. (Notice we move inside of the symbol, look at the top left hand corner it now says ‘Scene 1> Click here Button’, keep looking here to see where you are in a flash movie). You will notice that the frames have changed. They now have states. ‘Up’, ‘Over’, ‘Down’ and ‘Hit’.
- Select the ‘Over’ state keyframe (This is what the button will look like when the mouse is over the button). Insert Keyframe F6. Select the text. In the property inspector at the bottom of the stage change the color of the text.
- Select the ‘Downstate’ frame, insert a keyframe and change the colour again.
- For the ‘Hit state’ draw a box around the area of the text.
NB The graphic that is put in the hit state is what defines the boundaries of the button. It is invisible and is only used by flash to define interactive properties. The mouse would flicker if we left the text as the definition of the hit state.
- Once we have finished editing the states of our button click on ’Scene 1’ to return to the main timeline (or root) of the movie
- To see how the button works test the movie. (CTRL+ ENTER)
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