A Button is one of the three Types of Symbols available in Flash. In short, it can be used to add interactivity to your Flash movie. Unlike a Movieclip or Graphic Symbol, Buttons contain only 4 special frames.
In this tutorial, I'm going to give you a thorough description of the 4 "mysterious" frames that a Button contains. Are you confused by any of them? Then, this is the tutorial for you!
Let's go!
Before we get to some more serious stuff, let us make sure we know the basics.
To create a Button, select something on the Stage and press F8. In the dialog box that should pop up, type anything (for example, "my_button") in Name and choose—yes, you guessed it—Button in Type.
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To edit the button, double-click it. Instead of the normal infinitely long Timeline, we can see four big frames: Up, Over, Down, and Hit.
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These short labels do not quite explain their true use. Let me elaborate on this, then :-)
"Up" Frame
On this frame, you can specify how your Button looks when it is not being interacted with. No clicking, rolling over, and so on.
"Over" Frame
On this frame, you can specify how your Button will look when you are rolling your mouse over it.
For example, you can scale it up by 130% (press Ctrl + Alt + S and change Scale to 130). It's a very common thing to do so among Flash developers.
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"Down" Frame
On this frame, you can specify how your Button will look when you are pressing it.
A common thing to do at this point is to scale the Button down by 70% (press Ctrl + Alt + S and change Scale to 70).
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Scaling it down is a good idea. It makes the Button logical—after all, what happens when you press a Button on your keyboard? Yep, it goes down (although I'm doubtful if it get so much smaller).
"Hit" Frame
Contrary to the previous 3 frames, the name of this one doesn't tell much.
So, on this frame, we define an area which evokes the second and third frame. It is some kind of "hit area". Scale it up by as much as 200% so that it's easier for people to hit.
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Alright, looks like this is it for this tutorial. Hopefully, it has been an enjoyable read that allowed you to expand your knowledge of Flash in the area of Button.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers!
