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Flash 5.0 Tips Customizing Your Interface In Flash 5.0, Macromedia replaced most of the dialog boxes, interface controls, and inspectors with floating panels. Panels can take up a great deal of space and quickly become cumbersome if you don't customize them.
By default, Flash 5.0's most commonly used panels are grouped to the right of the document window. However, the groupings and size of each are not fixed. To separate or reorder a particular panel, simply click and drag its name tab to your preferred location. To quickly show or hide all the Flash 5.0 panels, hit the Tab key.
Panel Sets
You probably find yourself working on one specific task at a time in Flash, whether it's scripting, animation, or graphic design. Panel sets let you maintain a number of panel layouts to fit each task at hand.
To create a panel set, open, position, and size the appropriate panels, then choose Save Panel Layout from the Window menu. Choose a name for the set and click OK. Now you can access that set at any time from the Window · Panel Sets menu.
To remove a panel set, locate the Flash 5.0 folder on your computer's hard disk. Choose the subfolder named Panel Sets to select and delete the unwanted set.
If you work in a group, you can also share panel sets by placing copies of the set file into each person's Panel Sets folder.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts can streamline your work flow while also reducing the strain caused by repetitive clicking. In previous versions of Flash, shortcut assignments were fixed, incomplete, and inconsistent with other popular applications. Flash 5.0 now contains a powerful and extremely flexible system of custom keyboard shortcuts. The product also comes loaded with a variety of common setups from programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand. Additionally, shortcut sets, like panel sets, are fully customizable.
Creating your own personal set of keyboard shortcuts is a snap. Click Edit · Keyboard Shortcuts and the Customize Shortcuts dialog box will appear.
You can edit an existing set or create a new one. Once a set is selected, you can choose to customize the Drawing menu commands, drawing tools, or Test Movie menu commands. Select the command or tool you want to customize. Then click the Add button to create a new shortcut, or select the existing shortcut and click Change. Then hit the key combination on the keyboard. To save the shortcut, click OK.
Common Libraries
Flash 5.0 replaced the Libraries menu with the Window · Common Libraries submenu, but the latest version is almost identical to the old one, with the addition of new samples and Smart Clips. Common libraries can contain anything you need to access readily. Rather than clicking File · Open and trawling the file system, you can organize all of your commonly used artwork, sound files, animations, and scripted symbols into the one place and open them with just one click.
To add or remove a common library file, browse the hard disk for the Flash 5.0 folder. Within the folder will be a subfolder named Common Libraries. You can drag files into the folder or delete them to customize your own library menu.
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