Flash Tips for Creating Web Site Content

By Doug Sahlin

Part of the Building Flash Web Sites For Dummies Cheat Sheet

If you're building a Web site, you need to use Flash to keep your site visually interesting for viewers. Whether you want to make text fly off the page or show a video, Flash is the way to go. The following list offers tips to use as you create content for your Flash Web site:

Use symbols for each graphic object you create.
Test your handiwork early and often by using the Test Movie command.
Don't lump all of your content into one movie. Instead, break a large site into several small movies that load into an interface.
Don't use a different frame rate when loading external content into your Flash interface.
Use symbol instances when at all possible instead of creating new content.
Create a separate layer for any ActionScript that is added to keyframes in the timeline.
Label keyframes with meaningful names.
Use symbol linkage to reference Library items with ActionScript.
Use comments with complex lines of ActionScript.
Label layers.