Migrating from Flash 8 to Flash CS3 Professional

New features and functionality in the Flash workspace

In addition to new workspace features, such as that great new dock, new functionality has been added to the Flash workspace. This first section covers some new additions and changes to dialog boxes. Following sections discuss large new functionality changes like the changes to drawing in Flash, integration with other products, video, new components, and (always a fun one) ActionScript.

Bitmap Symbol Library Item dialog box

When you view import a bitmap image, you can double-click that image in the Library to view information about it. The dialog box has now changed—there is now a much larger preview of the bitmap (see Figure 18).

(+) view larger

Figure 18: The Bitmap Symbol Library Item dialog box in Flash 8 (left) and Flash CS3 (right).

You might notice another change under the Linkage heading, where you can specify a base class for a symbol. I will discuss the new capabilities for setting a symbol's base class later on in the ActionScript 3.0 section of this article.

Control the color of bounding boxes

In Flash CS3, you can change the color for selections, which lets you easily see the type of element that is on the Stage. It's a subtle improvement, but nevertheless very useful. You can change the selection colors for Drawing objects, Drawing primitives, Groups, Symbols, and one color for all other elements (see Figure 19).

Figure 19: Different bounding box colors indicate the type of element selected. The default color settings have been modified for visibility.

To change the colors of your bounding boxes, choose Edit > Preferences (Windows) or Flash > Preferences (Mac OS), and then modify the current color selections under Highlight Color.

Templates for detecting active content

When you publish an FLA file, a new file exports with your SWF file by default. You upload the new file, AC_RunActiveContent.js, to your server along with your SWF and HTML files, so users can interact with the application in Internet Explorer without activating it first (typically using an initial mouse click).

For a video tutorial that explains this updated functionality, see Publishing FLA files.

Preview 9-slice scaling on the Stage

You can now preview 9-slice scaling on the Stage, so if you make adjustments to movie clips with 9-slice scaling applied, you can see your changes right away. To see this improvement, create a new symbol and make sure that you enable 9-slice scaling (at the bottom of the dialog box). Double-click the symbol to enter symbol-editing mode, and notice that you now see 9-slice scaling grid within the symbol (see Figure 20).

Figure 20: Now you can access the 9-slice scaling grid when you enter symbol-editing mode. It would make no sense to apply 9-slice scaling on this drawing of a groundhog, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Copy and paste motion and filters

There is quite a bit of new functionality when it comes to copy and paste in Flash. First of all, the Copy And Paste Motion command lets you apply a motion tween to another object. You can paste the frames, tween, and other information to the object, choosing to paste all or a selection of the properties of the copied motion tween.

To copy and paste motion from one object to another object, follow these steps. You can find an example with assets to use in this article's source files called copypastemotion.fla.

Create a new symbol or group, and place it on the Stage on Layer 1.
Animate that instance on Layer 1 using a timeline animation. In the example, we added a simple motion tween on Layer 1.
Create a new layer (Layer 2).
Create a new symbol or group, or drag another instance of your existing symbol to the Stage on Layer 2.
Select the entire animation that you want to copy on Layer 1 of the timeline, right-click the animation, and then choose Copy Motion from the context menu (see Figure 21).

Figure 21: Select the entire animation, and then select Copy Motion from the context menu.

Tip: Click the first frame of the animation, press the Shift key, and then click the last frame of the animation to select a span of frames.
Go to Layer 2 and select the frame with the instance you want to “paste” the animation onto. Using Figure 21 as a reference, you would select frame 1 of Layer 2.
With the frame selected, right-click and choose Paste Motion from the context menu.

You successfully applied the motion tween from Layer 1 to the instance on Layer 2.

Note: You can also copy the motion as ActionScript 3.0 in Flash CS3. See the ActionScript and code editor changes page for information.

You can also copy and paste filter settings from one symbol instance to a different symbol instance, which makes working with filters much easier in Flash CS3. To copy and paste filter settings in Flash, follow these quick and easy steps.

Add two new symbol instances to the Stage (you can use the assets from copypastemotion.fla file, included with this article's source files).
Open the Filters panel (Window > Filters).
Select one of the instances on the Stage, and then apply a filter to it using the Add filter button in the Filters panel. Choose any filter from the menu, and adjust its settings as necessary.
After you apply the filter, select the instance with the filter applied and click the Copy Filters button in the Filters panel. Choose Copy Selected from the menu.
Select the second instance, and then click the Paste Filters button in the Filters panel. The filter from the first instance applies to the second instance.

Note: If you apply multiple filters, and you want to copy and paste all of those filters to other instances, select Copy All from the Copy Filters menu instead of Copy Selected.

There have also been many improvements to how Flash integrates with other products, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. To learn more about these enhancements, keep reading.