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The
Property Inspector
Layers
and Frames
The Library is the best storage facility for all media elements used in your Flash file. Media placed in the Library can be used repeatedly within your file, and—regardless of how many times you use that media—it doesn't significantly add to the file size. Using the Library is one way Flash movies are kept small.
The Library is used in two basic ways, for editing and for accessing it's contents. Library items to edit are called Symbols. You drag an Instance of the symbol into your movie.
NEW TERM: A Symbol is the name for anything you create and place in your Library, this is usually something visual such as a graphic shape. After a Symbol is placed in the Library it can be used many time over with little impact of total file size.
NEW TERM: An Instance is one copy of a Symbol used in the movie. Every time you drag a symbol from the Library, you're creating another instance. It is not a copy in the traditional sense of the word, because there's only one master, and each instance has the ability to be edited into something quite different from the main Symbol.
The typical Library contains many different symbols. The Library provides access to all the media plus management tools for sorting, deleting, and renaming the different symbols. There's more that can be learned later about the Library including how you can share Library's between different movies.
Page Updated on March 2, 2003