Macromedia Flash 8 - Creating New Layers and Moving Items Between Layers Video

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Macromedia Flash 8 - Creating New Layers and Moving Items Between Layers

Let us take a look at making new layers since we have just got this one stack of layers here that we are working with. I have got a couple of different ways to make new layers depending on if you like icons or menus. I have got a button right down here at the bottom of the timeline panel that allows me to insert a layer. Now, its companion appear in the insert menu under timeline and there we have got layer there as well, above to the same thing and the only other thing I am going to pay attention to before I set this up is which layer is the current active layer because that is going to determine the position where the new layer is going to go. If I click on the cloud layer as my active layer, click on new layer, Walla! New layer. Now, this is going to bring up one other thing right off the bat and that is it comes in as layer 8. Now, the 8 on the end of that does not really mean a whole heck of a lot. It means it is the A layer I have made in this movie file. So, very importantly, I am probably going to want to change the name this layer to indicate whatever content that I am working on. Now, let us see. I want to make another flower, so I am going to make this a flower layer. I will just give it a name, I will call it flower 3 since I already have flower 1 and 2 and we will go over this a little bit later but I am going to grab something that I already made out of my library. I am going to grab a flower out of the library and toss it in. Now since the flower three-layer was my active layer; that is where the flower is going to go. I can even verify that by just going and hiding that layer and you can see that is where my flower went. Now, I would bring that up because you notice that a simple mouse click on the screen is going to bounce you from one layer to the other. So you might want to pay attention as you are moving around your program, one click on one object will move you active layer and if you start adding some elements, you will found out that you added something with wrong layer. Now, for moving things especially when you put it in the wrong layer or even if you wanted to separate some items out, let me make a new layer and let us go over how to change an object from one layer to another. I am going to separate the clouds. Right now, I have them both in one single layer and I am just going to make a new layer, I will go down to my insert layer menu, made a new layer right above my old active layer and I will just call that cloud 2. Now, before I go moving anything into that layer, I would like to take this opportunity since this is our first new layer in our little movie file we are working on. To point out the differences, you will notice that most of the layers have a little gray area on the timeline window and a fill dot but my brand new layer is white with an unfilled dot. That is going to be very useful to you because you will be able to figure out the concept of an empty layer. This is a layer that has no graphic files into it. As you make layers to your program, you might do exactly what we are talking about before we just put something in the wrong layer, and looking up into your timeline window and seeing a nice big empty icon like that is your clue that the object probably went some place else than you thought it was going to go. So that icons are going to be great thing to look at just to verify that you got right thing in the right place, they will help you identify an empty layer very quickly. Now, to move the clouds, I am going to select the cloud that I want to pull out of the original cloud layer and I am just going to cut it and I will just use Ctrl X on the PC which would be Command X on the Macintosh and I am going to paste it. Now, I need to change layers over the cloud 2 layer. Now, that is going to be my active layer before I paste. Now, I am going to do my paste for the menu simply because I would normally do control this standard shortcut for paste in those programs, but you can see, I have got three different kinds of paste in here and paste in the center is setup with my standard keyboard shortcut for Ctrl V. Paste in the center will do exactly what it sounds like and that is I will get my cloud pasted right into the center of my stage which is not really where I wanted it. I wanted it back where it was before. I just want it to move it from one layer to another. So let me undo that and we will try that again. The real control I wanted was paste in place. This will put it right back where it was before. So, if I do paste in place, I now have my cloud 2 in my cloud 2 layer and see hiding it and point it back up and it is putted right back where it was before. So, my standard way of moving an object from one layer to another is to cut it out of the old layer, select the new layer as that active layer and then paste in place to put it back in.

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Let us take a look at making new layers since we have just got this one stack of layers here that we are working with. I have got a couple of different ways to make new layers depending on if you like icons or menus. I have got a button right down here at the bottom of the timeline panel that allows me to insert a layer. Now, its companion appear in the insert menu under timeline and there we have got layer there as well, above to the same thing and the only other thing I am going to pay attention to before I set this up is which layer is the current active layer because that is going to determine the position where the new layer is going to go.

If I click on the cloud layer as my active layer, click on new layer, Walla! New layer.

Now, this is going to bring up one other thing right off the bat and that is it comes in as layer 8. Now, the 8 on the end of that does not really mean a whole heck of a lot. It means it is the A layer I have made in this movie file. So, very importantly, I am probably going to want to change the name this layer to indicate whatever content that I am working on.

Now, let us see. I want to make another flower, so I am going to make this a flower layer. I will just give it a name, I will call it flower 3 since I already have flower 1 and 2 and we will go over this a little bit later but I am going to grab something that I already made out of my library. I am going to grab a flower out of the library and toss it in.

Now since the flower three-layer was my active layer; that is where the flower is going to go. I can even verify that by just going and hiding that layer and you can see that is where my flower went.

Now, I would bring that up because you notice that a simple mouse click on the screen is going to bounce you from one layer to the other. So you might want to pay attention as you are moving around your program, one click on one object will move you active layer and if you start adding some elements, you will found out that you added something with wrong layer.

Now, for moving things especially when you put it in the wrong layer or even if you wanted to separate some items out, let me make a new layer and let us go over how to change an object from one layer to another. I am going to separate the clouds. Right now, I have them both in one single layer and I am just going to make a new layer, I will go down to my insert layer menu, made a new layer right above my old active layer and I will just call that cloud 2.

Now, before I go moving anything into that layer, I would like to take this opportunity since this is our first new layer in our little movie file we are working on. To point out the differences, you will notice that most of the layers have a little gray area on the timeline window and a fill dot but my brand new layer is white with an unfilled dot. That is going to be very useful to you because you will be able to figure out the concept of an empty layer. This is a layer that has no graphic files into it. As you make layers to your program, you might do exactly what we are talking about before we just put something in the wrong layer, and looking up into your timeline window and seeing a nice big empty icon like that is your clue that the object probably went some place else than you thought it was going to go. So that icons are going to be great thing to look at just to verify that you got right thing in the right place, they will help you identify an empty layer very quickly.

Now, to move the clouds, I am going to select the cloud that I want to pull out of the original cloud layer and I am just going to cut it and I will just use Ctrl X on the PC which would be Command X on the Macintosh and I am going to paste it. Now, I need to change layers over the cloud 2 layer. Now, that is going to be my active layer before I paste.

Now, I am going to do my paste for the menu simply because I would normally do control this standard shortcut for paste in those programs, but you can see, I have got three different kinds of paste in here and paste in the center is setup with my standard keyboard shortcut for Ctrl V. Paste in the center will do exactly what it sounds like and that is I will get my cloud pasted right into the center of my stage which is not really where I wanted it. I wanted it back where it was before. I just want it to move it from one layer to another.

So let me undo that and we will try that again. The real control I wanted was paste in place. This will put it right back where it was before. So, if I do paste in place, I now have my cloud 2 in my cloud 2 layer and see hiding it and point it back up and it is putted right back where it was before.

So, my standard way of moving an object from one layer to another is to cut it out of the old layer, select the new layer as that active layer and then paste in place to put it back in.

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