Hands-On: Flash MX 2004 Movie Clips

Exercise 29: Creating the “NAVBAR” Buttons (Optional Exercise)

This page details how to build Flash Buttons to use in your Movie Clip. If you are using the pre-built buttons for the exercise, you can skip this section and move on to Exercise 30.

Follow these steps:

1. Choose [Ctrl] + [F8] to create a new BUTTON symbol. Name it “Link 1”. (Or, whatever you like.)
2. Use Verdana, 16pts, bold, and black, to create the first button text. (Or, whatever you like.)
3. Notice the UP OVER DOWN and HIT editing frames of the Button Timeline.



4. Click in the Over frame and insert a keyframe [F6] in the OVER frame and then change the text color to create an active look to the button.
5. Click in the Down frame and insert a keyframe [F6] in the DOWN frame and then change the text color andstyle to Italic to create a mouse down look.

• This will become the active hit area for the mouse, otherwise only the text shape will be active for the hyperlink, and you don’t want that to happen!

6. Click in the Hit frame and insert a keyframe [F6] in the HIT frame and draw a filled box to completely cover the button text . Use a bright color from the Colors panel for this hit box.
7. Use the image below to guide you if necessary. You will need to repeat these steps for each button link you create for the Navbar layer.
8. When finished you can drag out a copy of each Link button into the Navbar layer.
9. Use the Align panel to distribute the buttons evenly, de-select the to stage button and choose the middle Distribute Vertical Center button
10. Save your file so you can move on to build the ActionScript for the navigation links.