In this tutorial, I'm going to say a few very important things about Symbols in Flash. The most important points that I plan on covering include:
- What are Symbols?
- How to create them?
- What are the three Symbol Types?
- Advantages—why should we use them?
What are Symbols?
A Symbol is a reusable object used in Flash. It is stored in the Library (Ctrl + L) from where you can drag-and-drop it onto the Stage. A copy of the original Symbol is called an Instance of that Symbol.
A very important characteristic of Symbols is that if you edit one Symbol, all of its Instances will be updated as well. However, changing the properties of an Instance of a Symbol does not effect other Instances.
How to create them?
Creating Symbols is very easy. It can be done in two steps:
i. Select an object in your Flash movie and press F8.
ii. In the "Convert to Symbol" dialog box that will pop up, you can specify our Symbol's:
- Name
- Type
- and Registration point
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The Name is mainly for your use—it is not very important. However, choosing the Type depends on the purpose you want to use your Symbol for. We are going to talk about it in more detail shortly.
The three Symbol Types
As you know, when converting an object to a Symbol, we can choose between the three Types: Movieclip, Button, Graphic. Each of them is used for completely different things in Flash.
Movieclip— The most important thing about a Movieclip is that it can be controlled via Actionscript
Why use Symbols
OK, but what are the advantages of using Symbols? Let's have a look:
a) Symbols can be tweened (see Tweening).
b) Symbols don't get mixed. Thanks to that you can keep many Symbols on the same Layer.
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Below you can see an example of what happens if you don't convert your objects to Symbols.
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I first drew a light blue rectangle and then I drew a square. As you can see, the rectangle chopped off a handsome chunk of the circle!
c) All symbols are automatically saved in the library (Ctrl + L), so that you can always retrieve them.
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d) Symbols can easily be swapped, moved, scaled up, scaled down—you name it. Just select the Symbol and press Q to transform it.
e) Button and Movieclip Symbols can be controlled via Actionscript. Graphic Symbols can't.
f) Using Symbols allow you make your movie smaller in file size.
Conclusion
OK, this is it for this tutorial. I hope this information helped you somehow. Thanks for reading and have a nice day!
Cheers!
