Create a Flash CS5 Document
To get started with Adobe Flash Creative Suite 5, you want to create a new Flash document. Use Flash CS5 documents to create graphics and type and put them in motion with timeline-based animation, movie clips, and interactive buttons. Add photos, sound, and video to your Flash document for an even richer experience. Use Flash CS5’s built-in scripting language, ActionScript, to create complex interactive environments that stand out.
Create a new Flash CS5 document
You can create a new, blank Flash CS5 document and set up your workspace in one of two ways:
From the start page, choose Flash File (ActionScript 3.0) under the Create New column.
Choose File→New→Flash File (ActionScript 3.0).
Your new document is created and the workspace appears. Before you get to work, specify some important settings, such as width and height, for your file by using the Document Properties dialog box.
Set or change Flash CS5 document properties
You can change the basic behavior of a Flash document by modifying the document’s properties. To open the Document Properties dialog box, choose Modify→Document and set these options:
Frame Rate: Because Flash files behave like movies, the frame rate is an important setting that affects the performance and playback speed of your movie. The default setting of 24 frames per second (fps) should work well.
Dimensions: The width and height you specify determine the size of your stage and in turn, the visible area of your finished movie. For now, leave the default setting of 550 pixels wide by 400 pixels high.
Background Color: Click the swatch to pick a background color for your stage from the Web-safe color palette. This setting also determines the background color of any web pages created by Flash when you publish your movie to the web.
Ruler Units: Select from this drop-down list the unit of measurement used for all measurement values in your document, including document size, width and height values, and ruler increments when rules are visible in the workspace.
When you’re done fine-tuning your document’s properties, click OK.