Flash glossary: Anchor point
Whenever you draw a line or shape in Adobe Flash Professional, you create a line called a path. A path is made up of one or more straight or curved segments. The beginning and end of each segment is denoted by anchor points, which work like pins holding a wire in place. A path can be closed (for example, a circle) or open with distinct endpoints (for example, a wavy line).
You change the shape of a path by dragging its anchor points, the direction points at the end of direction lines that appear at anchor points, or the path segment itself.
Paths can have two kinds of anchor points: corner points and smooth points. At a corner point, a path abruptly changes direction. At a smooth point, path segments are connected as a continuous curve. You can draw a path using any combination of corner and smooth points. If you draw the wrong type of point, you can always change it.
When selected with the subselection tool, smooth points display a Bézier handle that you can manipulate to change the arc of the curve segment:
A corner point can connect any two straight or curved segments, while a smooth point always connects two curved segments. A corner point can also connect both straight segments and curved segments.
Note: Don't confuse corner and smooth points with straight and curved segments.
To learn more about manipulating anchor points, see the section titled Paths in the Flash documentation.
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