Learning Flash CS4 Professional

Chapter 3. USING SYMBOLS

Introduction

When Peter Sellers acted in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, he played not one character, but three. Although there was only one Peter Sellers, costume, makeup, and acting brought Dr. Strangelove, President Merkin Muffley, and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake to life.

Flash assets known as symbols bring your Flash files to life much in the same way that actors contribute to films. Symbols are efficient Flash asset types that you can use again and again without materially contributing to file size, just as one actor can play multiple characters without increasing the size of a film’s cast.

Furthermore, when a new instance, or unique occurrence, of a symbol is created, that instance can be transformed without leaving any lasting effect on the symbol. For example, you can add three instances of a symbol to the stage. The first can be rotated, the second can be scaled, and the third can be faded to 50% opacity. Despite all of these transformations, the symbol from which the instances were derived remains unchanged. Taken from another perspective, editing or replacing the symbol will immediately update all instances derived from it.

Likening this to film, one actor can play multiple characters, and costume and makeup do not permanently transform the actors into the characters they play. If an actor is replaced, all characters played by that actor reflect the change.

Reusability, global editing, and file ...