When I found out I would be facing Flash in month 6, I decided to get a head start. My first step was to visit Lynda.com for a tutorial, and I chose one that looked pretty comprehensive. That's where I met Todd Perkins, a very articulate young man who talks at such a speed I couldn't even take notes.
As an indication of just how much there is to learn about Flash, the tutorials require 7 hours to view them all, and that doesn't count replaying them at least 4 times to understand them.
I learned that Flash is used to create animations and interactive applications. There are basic drawing tools for simple animations, and one can create "tweens" or animated animations. It's possible to add media and sound. There are two types of files, 'fla' files are working files and 'swf' files, which are output files. The area where one creates is called the stage, usually white but can also be colored. The gray area around it is where deselected objects can reside while working. I made it as far as resizing the workspace in properties, but I somehow detached my toolbars while trying to follow him and got myself into a bit of a mess. After trying the help menu, I managed to get them reconnected, although I have no idea how I did it, and they were backwards. Todd displayed this sample of a "simple" animation:
I had to chuckle reading that "if you have mastered all of these (Google Docs, Flash, etc.) you can choose something else. I think "mastering Flash" is a bit of an oxymoron.
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