Testing a movie > Testing a movie overview |  |

Testing a movie overview

As you work on a Macromedia Flash MX document, test it often to ensure that it plays as smoothly as possible and that it plays as expected. To test movies, you use a special version of the Flash Player whose tools let you access information that helps you optimize animations and troubleshoot ActionScript. If you use good authoring techniques in your ActionScript, your scripts will be easier to troubleshoot when something behaves unexpectedly.

Flash provides several tools for testing ActionScript in your movies:

| The Debugger shows a hierarchical display list of movie clips currently loaded in the Flash Player. Using the Debugger, you can display and modify variable and property values as the movie plays, and you can use breakpoints to stop the movie and step through ActionScript code line by line.
| The Output window displays error messages and lists of variables and objects.
| The `trace` action sends programming notes and values of expressions to the Output window.