Creating Flash Buttons Button Making Rollover Effects Enlarging the Clickable Area Giving Buttons Behaviors Behavior Options

Button Making Create the layer in which you will make the button. In the button layer, convert into a key frame (F6) the frame that will contain the button. With this key frame selected, type the desired button text, or draw or paste the bitmap of your button onto the stage. Right-click this button text or bitmap, choose Convert to Symbol, and the Convert to Symbol dialog will appear. Use this dialog to: Make the behavior be Button. Make the name end with _btn as in restart_btn. Make the registration be the upper-left corner. Click OK to close the dialog, then double-click the button onstage to view its timeline.

Rollover Effects To make the button change color when the user mouses over it, convert the Over frame into a key frame. In this Over key frame, change the button’s color to the desired Over color.

Enlarging the Hotspot If your button is text, its clickable area (i.e., hotspot) will probably be too small for your liking. To enlarge the button’s clickable area, convert the hit frame into a key frame, and draw a rectangle over the area you want Flash to make the clickable area.

Button Behaviors To go back into scene editing mode, click the name of the scene at the top of the timeline. On the stage, click the button to select it. If the Behaviors panel is not visible, pull down the Window menu and choose Development Panels  Behaviors. In the Behaviors panel, click the plus sign to pop out the quick menu.

Behavior Options To make the button go to a different frame of a movie, choose Movie Clip  Go and Play at Frame or Label. To make the button go to a Web site, choose Web  Go to Web page. To remove a behavior, click to select it in the Behaviors panel, then click the minus sign to delete it.