BASICS: The Flash MX Layers and Frames

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It may be difficult to really know where you are exactly in Flash MX, perhaps after reading this page you'll know a little bit more.

Although there's just one main Timeline, you can have several layers held within the Timeline. (This in itself is a very beneficial thing, you just don't know that yet!) The nice thing is that you can only be "in" one layer at a time, your job is to pay attention as to which "layer" that happens to be. Looking at the Layer's panel you'll see that the active Layer has a pencil icon to the left of the Layer. Once you lock a layer, you won't be able to affect it at all.

In the Timeline, a red marker indicates which frame is currently being viewed. This red current-frame marker can be in only one frame at a time—and that's the frame you're currently editing. At the beginning you won't be able to move the red current-frame marker because you only have one frame, that will change soon enough!

Navigating through Flash MX is fairly easy, but easy to get lost as well. The Address bar not only contains the hierarchy of your current location, it also provides a means of navigation. You can click the address bar and navigate back through the hierarchy.

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