I know what it's like: You decide to learn how to use a new program. You spend hours clicking on buttons, trying to figure it all out. Most of the time, it is just trial and error. Sometimes tutorials come in handy, but they usually don't—seldom are they basic enough for you to follow if have absolutely no experience with the program.
What a waste of time, given that all beginners have a similar idea of what should be learned at first! In Flash these big subjects are:
- panels
- tools
- timeline
- top menu
- main stage
Getting at least a vague idea of these five subjects is, in my view, the best "first step" a beginner can take.
So, as you can see, tutorial will by no means teach you any advanced stuff. The purpose of this tutorial is to spare you those X hours of trying to grasp "where is what". Of course, that can only be the case with beginners. If you are not one, try finding something different here.
Let's start
Alright, let's have a look at this image.
Below I'm going to describe each of these regions. As I mentioned, there are five of them (two numbers pertain to the same region). It is crucial to understand the function of each of them. I'm not going to go into too much details about them, though. That's because I believe the information included below is enough for anyone to start discovering things by himself—and that's the point of this tutorial.
1. Main stage
The big white rectangle that you can see under Figure 1 is the main Stage. Whatever you place within the area, it is going to be after you publish the Flash document. You can adjust the color, size, as well as other properties of the Canvas in Properties Panel.
2.Menu
All the Flash features are available from there. So, whenever you're looking for something—this is the place to start!
Let me describe each of the drop-down menus.
File — the most important options here include Export (allows you to export your movie as a swf. file), Import (allows you to import a variety of media, like music, images, movies). Other than that, it's always good to remember where "Save as..." is :-)
Edit — Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts plus several others can be found here, like Copy, Cut, Paste, Undo, Redo (if you don't use shortcuts for these).
View — This sub-menu contains some really cool features. Actually some Flash devolopers seem to forget about these options, thus making their lives harder. For example, it is sometimes good to switch on different type of snapping (View>Snapping).
Or the preview mode: If your computer is running on low memory, why not enable the "Fast" mode?
Insert — I don't peronally use this submenu at all, because all of these features can be used in an easier way (i.e. by right-clicking on the Timeline).
Modify — Contains plenty of features that are categorized in several submenus. To highlight those that I find most useful: Swap Symbol, Convert Lines to Fills, Bring Forward/Backward, Flip Vertical/Horizontal. It goes without saying that having a hotkey for each of them is important.
Text — Settings in this menu can easily be accessed from Properties panel (when a textfield is selected). That goes for everything except "Check Spelling".
Commands — Command features let you install and run commands. The chances are you won't need them—at least not too often.
Control — Features related to the way your movie is displayed. You can Test Movie, Test Scene, Debug Movie, Mute Sounds.
Windows — Allows you to open panels (learn more below).
Help — Things related to assist you. Most of them are self-explanatory, so I think you will do without me here :-)
3. and 4. Panels
They are two areas where your open panels should be located. You can see them at Figure 3. and Figure 4.
Figure 3. — Most of the time, you'll see Properties Panel there.
Figure 4. — On the right side, you can put a variety of panels from menu>Windows: Color Mixer, Library, and many more. Well, actually those panels can be put anywhere in Flash, but it is best to keep them on the right side.
Generally speaking, one should keep everything in order while working in Flash—it saves a lot of time and frustration :-)
Library — a panel where our symbols are stored.
5. Tools
Tools, as their name suggests, are absolutely necessary for anyone using Flash. The most important one is the Selection Tools which is used to select, drag objects around the stage, and so on.
You can customize the Tool Panel by going to: Edit>Customize Tools Panel.
When you roll over any of them, you'll be informed about hotkey for the tool.
6. Timeline
Last but not least, there is the Timeline. By default, the Timeline contains one layer, but more layers can be added by simply clicking on 
icon that is located at the bottom left corner of the below image.
Each layer "contains" a row of frames. These frames can be converted to Key frames or Blank key frames. They can also remain just ordinary frames. A frame contains the same "information" as the key frame proceeding it. It sounds a little complicated, but in fact it's not :-)
An important thing to remember about key frames is that you can place Actionscript code on them. To do that, left-click the key frame to select it, and press F9 to open the Actionscipt Window.
That is what Actionscipt Window looks like. What to type there, well—that's a topic for other tutorials :-)
So, that's basically it. Hope you have found this tutorial useful and at least a little entertaining :) I have made my best not to make it just another "boring lesson".
Cheers!
