Design Techniques with Flash MX

Duration: 2 days

This course teaches principles and techniques for designing Flash sites: how to lay out pages in Flash, use color and text effectively, work with multiple image types, build navigation in Flash, make Flash usable, and incorporate sound and video. The course mainly uses the Flash Timeline to create content, with very little ActionScript.

Prerequisites
To gain the most from this class, you should already be familiar with Web terminology and have completed the Introduction to Flash course or have equivalent experience with Flash

Course Content

Using Flash for Interactive Design
Basic principles of interactive design
Review of basic Flash skills
Animating with the timeline

Designing an Interface in Flash
Interface design
Site architecture
Arranging page content
Use of color
Using color swatches

Using Text Effectively
Antialiasing, kerning, line length and spacing and font type
Embedded versus device fonts
Using text in bitmaps
Adding a scroll bar to a text box
Using font mapping

Building a Navigation System
Designing a navigation system in Flash MX
Creating usable navigation buttons in Flash MX
Adding submenus
Structuring documents by using the Timeline
Using simple ActionScript for navigation
Loading multiple SWF files into a document

Using Images in Flash
Importing and manipulating images in Flash MX
Working with bitmaps in Flash MX
Importing and working with vector graphics
Using movie clip masks to create transitions
Downloading JPEGs at run time

Creating Compact Movies
Incorporating sound effectively
Adding an on/off button to control sound
Incorporating video into Flash MX

Using Text Interactively
Building interactive forms in Macromedia Flash MX
Loading text into a dynamic text box

Integrating Flash into an HTML Page
Publish Flash for Web use
Export bookmarks from Macromedia Flash MX
Building hybrid (Flash/HTML) pages