Flash
Work Environment
Panels
You've already seen two panels during these lectures: the Property Inspector panel and the Scene panel. The panels in Flash help you to view, organize and change elements of a movie. Here are some examples of how they are used.
- to display the dimensions and location of an object
- to mix custom colours and gradients
- to apply transparency and tints to objects
A list of all the available panels can be found in Window > Panels. You can move, show, hide, and resize panels. Once you hit upon an arrangement of panels you like, you can create a custom layout for Flash and save it so you can recall it at any time.
Panels in Flash MX and MX 2004
As mentioned earlier on in the course, the Flash MX and MX 2004 panel layout is quite a bit different than the Flash 5 (and earlier versions) layout. With Flash 5, panels were mostly all "floating" panels. They could be moved around the work space, resized, opened or closed freely. With the new Flash layout, panels are all "docked" to the right and bottom of the Flash interface (see image below). This layout works well for some people, but many designers have grown quite accustomed to the traditional floating panel layout. Luckily, it can be changed quite easily.
Changing the Flash MX and MX 2004 layout to a Floating Panel Layout
The panels in these newer versions of Flash will by default appear like this (click the image for a larger view):
The default panels can be collapsed and resized vertically, but they cannot be moved freely . To make these panels "float", simply move the mouse over the top left corner of the panel, next to the title bar, until you see a four sided arrow. This is the panel's gripper. Click the gripper and drag the panel away from the other panels. It will now be floating on its own, and can be freely moved anywhere you want.
Floating panels in Flash MX/MX 2004 can still be grouped together. When grouped together, panels will collapse vertically much like the default layout, but they can be moved around as a unit. To expand or collapse a panel, click the black arrow to the left of the title.
can
be expanded to 
Panel Features
Many
panels have a pop-up Options menu, indicated by the right-facing
arrow (Flash 5). If there are no options for a panel, the arrow will be greyed
out. All the panels have a link to the Help file which you access
by clicking on the question mark icon (Flash 5). The Help file will open in a
browser window and take you to the section pertaining to the panel you're viewing.
The Mixer panel is an example of two panels grouped into one. When a panel has more than one tab, like the Mixer does, click on the rear tab to bring that portion forward (Flash 5).
In Flash MX/MX 2004, the pop-up Options menu basically unchanged for most
panels, but the button to open it is slightly different.
Additionally, in the these newer versions of Flash, there is no longer a Help button, but the Help file for the panel can still be accessed in the pop-up menu, under Help.
To resize a panel: click and drag on the lower right corner.
To collapse a panel to its title bar and tabs only: double-click on the title bar. Double-click the title bar again to restore the panel. (On a Macintosh, double-clicking on the title bar will collapse the panel but the tabs will be hidden.) In Flash MX and MX 2004, this method collapses a panel or group of panels (floating) even further than the earlier described method. If you collapse a group of panels this way, they will all collapse to only the title bar.
To move a floating panel: click and drag it by the title bar to a new location.
To temporarily hide all panels and the Toolbox: press Tab (Flash 5) or F4 (Flash MX/MX 2004) and press it again to show the panels and Toolbox again.
To close a panel: click on the close icon in the upper right corner.
To close all panels: Window > Close All Panels (Flash 5, MX only).
To open a panel: Window > Panels and click on the desired panel name. Some of the panels have shortcut key commands to open them. They are listed in the Panels sub-menu. (In Flash MX 2004, some panels are found in the Design Panels, Development Panels, and Other Panels sub-menus.
The Launcher bar (Flash 5 only) above provides quick access to some commonly used panels. It's located on the bottom right corner of the Stage window. We'll discuss the different buttons on the Launcher when we discuss the panels that they control. The launcher bar is not available on Flash versions later than 5.
To group panels: drag a panel by its tab (gripper in Flash MX/MX 2004) and drop it on the tab of another panel.
To remove a panel from a group: drag it by its tab (gripper in Flash MX/MX 2004) and drop it outside of the group.
To save a custom layout: Window > Save Panel Layout... and enter a name then click OK.
To recall a saved layout: Window > Panel Sets and select the layout name. To view the default panel layout, go to Window > Panel Sets > Default Layout.
We won't go into detail about each panel now. As we work through the course, we'll look at them more closely.
Panels Summary
Panels help you to view, organize and change elements of a movie. Panels can be grouped together for convenience. A particular layout of panels can be saved and recalled another time.
The Flash MX/MX 2004 default panel layout is much different than the Flash 5 panel layout, but these panels can still be changed to float freely like the older panel layouts.
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