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| Adobe Flash CS4 Professional (Flash) | A program that was originally designed to create small, fast-loading animations for use in Web pages that has evolved into an advanced authoring tool for creating interactive media that range from animated logos to Web site navigational controls and entire Web sites to engaging content for mobile devices. |
| Workspace | The Flash program window. |
| Animation | A series of images whose content in each image changes and that is displayed in sequence to give the illusion of motion. |
| Bitmap animation | Animation created by playing back a sequence of bitmap still images to produce the perception of motion. |
| Bitmap graphic | Animation created by playing back a sequence of bitmap still images to produce the perception of motion. |
| Dock | A collection of individual panels or panel groups. |
| Document | A Web media created in Flash; includes text, static images, sound, and video as well as animations. |
| Fill | An area in a Flash graphic that can be painted with color; may or may not be enclosed by strokes. |
| FLA file | The Flash authoring document being worked with while content is developed using Flash. |
| Flash Movie | – Another name for a SWF file. |
| Flash Player plug-in | Software that allows SWF files in an HTML file to be viewed in a Web browser; also provides controls for magnifying the SWF file’s view, changing its quality, printing it, and other functions. |
| Grid | A set of lines behind all objects on the Stage; visible only while editing a document. |
| Group | To treat two or more elements as a single object. |
| Guide | A vertical or horizontal line dragged from the rulers and used to align objects on the Stage. |
| Hexadecimal code | A value that represents a color (such as #00FF00 for green) based on the three basic colors used on computer monitors—red, green, and blue (RGB). |
| Lasso tool | The tool used to select an object, to select several objects at one time, or to select an irregularly shaped area of an object by drawing a free-form marquee. |
| Marquee | An outline that encloses an area to be selected. |
| Merge Drawing mode | The default drawing mode in which objects drawn or moved on top of other objects merge with or segment the existing objects on the same layer. |
| Object Drawing mode | The drawing mode in which drawn shapes are treated as separate objects and do not merge with or alter other objects on the same layer. |
| Panel | An area that contains controls for viewing and changing the properties of objects, aligning objects, transforming objects, or mixing and selecting colors. |
| Panel group | Two or more panels displayed together. |
| Pasteboard | A gray area surrounding the Stage that can be used to place instructions and comments for reference or to store graphic objects until they are added to the Stage; for example, a graphic can be animated to move from the pasteboard onto the Stage. |
| Pixel | The smallest picture element on a monitor screen that can be controlled by a computer; short for picture element. |
| Playhead | A marker that indicates which frame is currently selected in the Timeline. |
| Property inspector | – A panel located at the right of the Flash workspace that provides easy access for reviewing and modifying the most common attributes of the currently selected tool or object. |
| Rulers | The unit of measurements (such as pixels displayed on the left and top edges of the Stage window; helpful when placing objects on the Stage according to specific coordinates and used to create vertical and horizontal guides. |
| Scrub | To drag the playhead back and forth through frames to play the animation manually; useful for testing an animation during development. |
| Selection tool | The tool used to select strokes or fills or a group of objects, move selected objects on the Stage or in the pasteboard, and modify objects. |
| Stage | The central area of the Document window where all the graphic objects for a document are created, imported, and assembled. |
| Stroke | A line that makes up a Flash graphic; may be straight or curved, individual line segments, or connected lines that form shapes. |
| Subselection tool | – The tool used to display and modify anchor points on strokes and on the outlines of fills that have no stroke. |
| Swatch | A color square in the color palette. |
| SWF file | The FLA file published to deliver its content for viewing by end users; also called a Flash movie. |
| Tangent handle | A handle that appears next to a selected anchor point on a curved line that can be dragged with the Subselection tool to change the curve. |
| Timeline | – The panel used to control and coordinate the frames and layers that make up a Flash document. |
| Tools panel | A panel, located on the right side of the Flash workspace, that contains the tools to draw, paint, select, and modify Flash graphics as well as to change the magnification level of the Stage, and to select other colors. |
| Vector animation | Animation created by playing back a list of shapes or vector graphics and their transformations in sequence to produce the perception of motion. |
| Vector graphic | – A graphic that includes a set of mathematical instructions that describe the color, outline, and position of all the shapes of the image. |
| Web media | The elements of text, graphics, animations, sounds, and videos that make up Web pages. |
| Web-safe colors | The 216 colors that display the same on both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator browsers, as well as both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. |
| Anchor point | A point on a stroke or outline of a fill with no stroke that can be dragged with the Subselection tool to modify the stroke or fill. |
