43
Chapter 3: Managing documents
When you create and save Adobe®
Flash®
CS4
Professional documents within the Flash authoring environment, the
documents are in FLA file format. To display a document in Adobe® Flash® Player, you must publish or export the
document as a SWF file.
You can add media assets to a Flash document and manage the assets in the library, and you can use the Movie
Explorer to view and organize all the elements in a Flash document. The Undo and Redo commands, the History panel,
and the Commands menu let you automate tasks in a document.
Working with Flash documents
About Flash files
In Flash, you can work with a variety of file types, each of which has a separate purpose:
•
FLA files, the primary files you work with in Flash, contain the basic media, timeline, and script information for a
Flash document.
Media objects
are the graphic, text, sound, and video objects that comprise the content of your
Flash document. The
Timeline
is where you tell Flash when specific media objects should appear on the Stage. You
can add
ActionScript
® code to Flash documents to more finely control their behavior and to make them respond to
user interactions.
•
SWF files, the compiled versions of FLA files, are the files you display in a web page. When you publish your FLA
file, Flash creates a SWF file.
•
AS files are ActionScript files—you can use these to keep some or all of your ActionScript code outside of your FLA
files, which is helpful for code organization and for projects that have multiple people working on different parts
of the Flash content.
•
SWC files contain the reusable Flash components. Each SWC file contains a compiled movie clip, ActionScript
code, and any other assets that the component requires.
•
ASC files are files used to store ActionScript that will be executed on a computer running Flash Media Server. These
files provide the ability to implement server-side logic that works in conjunction with ActionScript in a SWF file.
•
JSFL files are JavaScript files that you can use to add new functionality to the Flash authoring tool.
For video tutorials about working with Flash files, see the following:
•
www.adobe.com/go/vid0117
•
www.adobe.com/go/vid0118
See also
“
About the Timeline
” on page 22
Create a new document
You can create a new document or open a previously saved document in Flash, and you can open a new window as
you work. You can set properties for new or existing documents.
For a video tutorial, see Working with Flash Files at
www.adobe.com/go/vid0117
.
Updated 5 March 2009
