Overview

In This Chapter

Working with Libraries in Flash: Document Library and External Libraries

Organizing your Library and resolving conflicts

Defining content types and managing assets

Understanding basic symbol types: Graphic symbols, Button symbols, Movie Clips

Special symbol types: Components and Timeline Effect symbols

Linking and updating symbols with Authortime Shared libraries

Symbols are the key to file-size efficiency and interactive power in Flash. A symbol is a reusable element that resides in the current movie's document Library, which you access with Window ð Library (z/Ctrl+L). After you convert an item in your Flash movie into a symbol, each time you use that item on your Main Timeline or within a Movie Clip timeline, you're working with an instance of the original symbol. Unlike using individual graphic elements, you can use many instances of a symbol, with little or no addition to the file size.

Using symbols helps reduce the file size of your finished movie because Flash needs to save the symbol only once. Each time a given symbol is used in the project, Flash refers to its original profile. To support the variations of an instance, Flash needs to save information about the differences only — such as size, position, proportions, and color effects. If a separate graphic was used for each change, Flash would have to store a complete profile of all the information about that graphic — not just the changes, but also all of the points that specify what the original graphic looks like.

Furthermore, symbols can save you a lot of time and trouble, particularly when it comes to editing your movie. That's because changes made to a symbol are reflected in each instance of that symbol throughout the movie. Let's say that your logo changes halfway through production. Without symbols, you would have to find and change each copy of the logo. However, if you've used symbol instances, you need only edit the original symbol — the instances are automatically updated throughout the movie.

In this chapter, you learn to create and edit basic symbol types stored in your document Library. You also learn to use symbol instances, both within the Main Timeline and within other symbols, and to modify individual instances of a symbol. We'll briefly introduce special symbol types associated with Components and Timeline Effects.