Adjust Pen Tool Preferences
You can configure the Pen tool to change the appearance of the Pen tool cursor, display line segments as you draw, or change the appearance of selected points to suit your working style. You modify the Pen tool’s performance by choosing Edit | Preferences in Windows or Flash 8 |
Preferences on the Mac, and then clicking Drawing under Category, as shown here.

In the Pen tool section, you can select from the following options:
■ Show Pen Preview When you select this option, Flash creates a preview of each line segment as you move the cursor across the stage, before     you create the end point of the segment.

■ Show Pen Preview When you select this option, Flash creates a preview of each line segment as you move the cursor across the stage, before    you create the end point of the segment.
■ Show Solid Points This option causes Flash to display selected points as hollow points and unselected points as solid points.
■ Show Precise Cursors With this option selected, Flash displays the Pen tool as crosshairs. Use this option when you need to align path points to    precise locations along the grid.

Note that there are other selections you can make regarding lines in the Drawing Preferences (Connect Lines, Smooth Curves, Recognize Lines, Recognize Shapes, and Click Accuracy). These modifiers determine the accuracy of lines shapes and curves as you draw. The default setting for these modifiers is Normal. Unless you have a special drawing need, it is best to keep these settings at Normal.

Paint with the Brush
Tool You use the Brush tool when you want to add splashes of color that appear as if they came from a paintbrush. You can also use it to draw much like the Pencil tool. The difference is that with the Brush tool you can select various shapes and sizes of brushes to achieve a painterly kind of effect. To make a basic brush stroke, click the Brush tool, position your pointer on the stage, and start painting. Like the other drawing tools, you can turn on Object Drawing for the brush tool. When you do this, the brush stroke you created becomes an object that can be manipulated and can stack on top of or behind other objects on the same layer. If Object Drawing is turned off, the brush stroke is a merged drawing. You’ll most likely want to control the way your brush strokes look. In this section we’ll review the various properties available for brush strokes. The illustration shown at right was created with the Brush tool.

Although line segments drawn with the Line tool are done in the stroke color, objects created with the Brush tool are drawn in the fill color.

The Brush tool has modifiers that let you vary the shape of the brush tip, as well as the width of the brush. There’s even a modifier you can use to vary the width of the brush stroke when drawing with most pressure-sensitive tablets. However, you will see this icon only if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet installed on your system. The modifiers for the Brush tool are shown here.

The Brush modifiers in the Options section of the Toolbar (seen when the Brush tool is selected) include the following settings:
■ Lock Fill This tool is located to the right of the Brush Mode button. Use this tool if you’ve chosen a gradient fill as your color and you want the color to blend once across all the brush objects on the stage. If Lock Fill is not used, each shape will contain a separate gradient blend.
■ Brush Size Use this modifier to choose one of ten brush sizes that can be selected from a pop-up menu.
■ Brush Shape This modifier is used to select one of nine different brush shapes. The shapes available include circles, ovals, rectangles, squares, and a variety of calligraphic shapes.
■ Brush Mode This feature allows you to further hone in on the style of brushstroke by selecting a paint modifier. Paint modifiers define how the brush paints the selected area. Paint modifiers can be chosen from the Brush Mode pop-up menu. Brush modes are discussed in the next section.

To create a brush stroke that varies in width with your computer’s pressure-sensitive tablet, click the Pressure Sensitive button. Then click the triangle to the right of the Brush Size window and choose a brush size from the drop-down menu. If you are not using a tablet, you will not see this option.

Check Out the Brush Modes
At the top of the Options section is the Brush Mode modifier. Brush modes allow you to control how the paint interacts when it comes into contact
with another shape. Since Flash acts like a paint program if shapes are not drawing objects, grouped, or symbols, the Brush modes (shown here)
allow you to control how color is applied. (Grouping elements is covered in Chapter 5 and symbols are covered in Chapter 8.)

To select a Brush mode, select the Brush tool, click the Brush Mode button in the Toolbar’s Options panel, and choose one of the following paint modifiers:
■ Paint Normal This selection causes the brush to apply paint over existing lines and fills on the selected layer.
■ Paint Fills If this option is chosen, the brush will apply paint to all filled shapes and blank areas on the stage, leaving lines unaffected.
■ Paint Behind The brush will apply paint behind existing lines and fills, and color to blank areas of the stage, when this option is selected.
■ Paint Selection This selection causes the brush to apply paint within a selected filled shape while leaving lines and blank areas of the stage unaffected.
■ Paint Inside In this mode the brush will apply paint within the filled shape where you begin the brush stroke, without affecting surrounding lines, surrounding fills, and blank areas of the stage. If you like painting within the lines, choose this mode.

Brush modes let you choose how paint is applied with the Brush tool.

The figure above shows how you can modify where brush strokes are applied with the different Brush modes.

Select Graphic Elements

The Selection tool has a revered position in the upper-left corner of the Toolbar for good reason. It is one of the most versatile tools you have at your disposal. You use the Selection tool to select, move, and sometimes even to edit objects. Depending on whether the object you are creating is a merged or drawing object, the way you select the object will differ. With merged drawing shapes, a stroke and a fill on a shape are interpreted as two separate objects that can be selected and edited independently. Remember earlier in this chapter, when it was mentioned that the way you draw in Flash is different from the way you draw in other drawing programs? The ability to draw, select, and edit in two different drawing models is what sets Flash apart from vector-based drawing applications. In fact, most drawing applications work like the object drawing model. For example, if you draw a rectangle in another drawing application, the fill and stroke move as a single entity. This is not the case in Flash. The fill and stroke must be selected separately. In Chapter 5, we will cover this process in detail; but for now, we’ll just cover the basics.

Select an Object’s Fill
To select an object’s fill, click the Selection tool, position your cursor over the filled section of the object, and click. On a merged drawing shape, the fill will highlight with a screen when selected, as shown here. On an object drawing, the entire object will be selected with a blue frame surrounding the boundaries. Notice that when the fill is selected on a merged drawing shape, a screen appears over the selected area. You can now edit the fill independent of the object’s stroke. To select the entire object (fill and stroke) of a merged object, double-click it.

Select an Object’s Stroke
You also can select a merged drawing’s stroke with the Selection tool. To select a merged object’s stroke, click the Selection tool and move your cursor over the object’s stroke. Click the stroke to select it. When a merged drawing’s stroke is selected, it appears as a screened highlight just like when a merged drawing’s fill is selected, as shown here. After the stroke is selected, you can modify it with menu commands or other tools. On an object drawing, the stroke is selected in the same way as a merged drawing. The difference is that on the object drawing a visual cue (screen) will not highlight the stroke.

To move a merged drawing on the stage, click it with the Selection tool. Your cursor becomes an angled arrow with a four-headed arrow just below it (as shown in the previous illustration). Once this cursor appears, you can move the object anywhere on the stage.

Reshape Objects with the Selection
Tool You can use the Selection tool to reshape any object you create with the drawing tools whether it be an object drawing or merged drawing. When you move the Selection tool toward an object without clicking it, the cursor pointer changes, alerting you to the type of shaping you can do. In the following illustration, the Selection tool is indicating that it can be used to pull the nearest line segment into a curve (left) or to move the corner point (right).

To alter a curved segment, click the Selection tool and move your cursor toward the segment of the object you want to modify. When a curved-line icon appears below the cursor, click and then drag the segment to modify it, as shown at right.

You can also use the Selection tool to add corner points to a curved segment. To add a corner point to a curved segment, click the Selection tool, hold down ctrl (Windows)/opt (Mac), and then click and drag the point on the curved segment to where you want to add the corner point, as shown here.

Create a Selection of Objects
If you’re changing the same properties on similar objects, it’s often easier to select the objects simultaneously and then apply the change to the selection all at once. This process can often save you a lot of time and minimize mistakes. For example, if you created a series of circles and you need to move them all at once, or if you wanted to change them all to the same color, it would be easier to perform this task just once. To select several elements on the stage at once, you can use the multifunctional Selection tool or the Lasso tool.

Create a Selection with the Selection Tool
When you use the Selection tool to create a selection of objects, there are two ways you can go about it. The default method of selecting several objects with the Selection tool is to click one object, and then, while holding down shift, click other objects you want to add to the selection. To deselect an object from the selection, click that object again to deselect it. The other way you use the Selection tool to select objects is by creating a marquee selection. To create a marquee selection, click the Selection tool and then click and drag the tool down and across the stage. As you drag the tool, Flash creates a rectangular bounding box that gives you a preview of the marquee selection area, as shown here.

Release the mouse button, and Flash creates the selection. Merged drawings will appear highlighted with a screen, and object drawings will have a blue selection frame surrounding all of the selected objects within the parameters of the marquee.

Create a Selection with the Lasso Tool
The Lasso tool is located in the Tools portion of the Toolbar and looks like a cowboy’s lasso. You use the Lasso tool in its default mode to create a freeform selection of objects, or in Polygon mode to create a point-to-point selection of objects. Select in Freeform Mode To create a freeform selection, select the Lasso tool, click anywhere on the stage, and drag around the objects you want to select. As you drag the tool, Flash createsa line that gives you a preview of the selection area, as shown next. When you have surrounded (lassoed) the objects you want to select, release the mouse button.

Select in Polygon Mode When
you use the Lasso tool in Polygon mode, you create the selection area by making a point-to-point bounding box to define the boundary of the selection area. To create a point-to-point selection, select the Lasso tool. In the Options section of the Toolbar, click the Polygon Modifier button, as shown here.

Click anywhere on the stage to define the first point of the selection; click to create the second point, and Flash creates a straight line between the two points. Continue adding points until you have defined a selection area that encompasses all the items you want to select. Doubleclick to complete the selection, and Flash highlights the items you have selected.

You can select a piece of a merged drawing shape with the Lasso tool or by creating a marquee selection on a portion of the merged drawing.

Sample Fill and Stroke Colors

There are a few tools in the Toolbar that can help you set or modify the fill or stroke properties of a merged drawing shape. These tools are the Ink Bottle tool, the Eyedropper tool, and the Paint Bucket tool. In many ways, they replicate functions in the menu, the Properties Inspector, and the Options area of the Toolbar.

Use the Ink Bottle Tool
You use the Ink Bottle tool to apply a stroke to an object that doesn’t have one or to modify an existing stroke in your movie. It’s easy to spot in the Toolbar, as it looks similar to the oldfashioned ink bottles used to fill fountain pens.

To apply or modify a stroke on an object, click the Ink Bottle button in the Toolbar. In the Properties Inspector, you’ll see the properties you can modify, which include stroke color, height, and style. Select the new properties and then click anywhere on the shape; it will take on the new properties you set. Here you can see the Ink Bottle tool being used to change the properties of a circle’s stroke.

You can also modify the properties of a stroke by clicking the stroke and modifying it from the Properties Inspector.

Use the Paint Bucket Tool

The Paint Bucket button is in the Toolbar, to the right of the Ink Bottle button. You use the Paint Bucket tool to apply solid fill colors, or color blends known as gradients, to objects in Flash. The
polar opposite of the Ink Bottle tool, the Paint Bucket tool can be used to fill an existing shape with no fill or to modify an existing fill. Generally, you would use it to apply a fill to an object
that doesn’t currently have one. To apply a fill with the Paint Bucket tool, select the tool. Then, in the Colors section of the Toolbar, select a solid fill color or gradient from the palette. Position the Paint Bucket over the area of the shape you wish to fill and click, as shown next.

Like the Brush tool, the Paint Bucket tool has modifiers. The modifiers for the Paint Bucket tool differ in that they provide you with selection alternatives for filling strokes with various kinds of gaps in them. If the object you are filling was created with the Pencil or Pen tool and there are small gaps in the shape (if the shape is not totally closed), click the Gap Size tool in the Options settings (as shown in the previous illustration) and choose one of the options from the drop-down menu.
The Gap Size options are as follows:
■ Don’t Close Gaps This is the default setting. Flash will only apply the fill to objects with no gaps.
■ Close Small Gaps This setting tells Flash to apply the fill to an outline with small gaps.
■ Close Medium Gaps This setting tells Flash to apply the fill to an outline that has medium-sized gaps.
■ Close Large Gaps This setting informs Flash that you want the fill applied to an outline with large gaps.

Once you have all the Paint Bucket properties set, click an object on the stage to apply the fill. The object then takes on the new fill color you selected.

You can also modify the color of a fill by clicking the fill and selecting a new fill color from the Toolbar or Properties Inspector.