Graphic Symbols

First Symbol

It is very easy to create the symbol. Draw a ball (or whatever you want for your example) on the stage. After that hit F8 key or user Menu-Insert-Convert-to-Symbol. You will see “Convert to Symbol” Dialog appears. Make sure that Graphic symbol Behavior is chosen. Graphic symbols include simple drawings and it’s what we need right now. You will learn about Movie and Button symbols later.

Give an appropriate name to your Symbol. It is important because in the large animations

You may have numerous symbols and it could be a problem to find them if they are not organized by names. It’s a good idea to use prefixes to symbol names like grBall.

Don’t worry about other advanced options for now. Simply save your symbol.

On the stage you will see that when you accurately click the ball to select it – it will be surrounded with thin blue rectangle – it means you’re selected symbol. Symbol is a “whole thing” - your actual drawings are encapsulated inside it. You may drag and move symbol around the stage. If you double click the symbol – you’ll go inside it and can edit your initial drawings.

While editing drawings inside symbol look at the bar between Timeline and Stage. It shows you where you are currently located – and usually it’s Scene 1 – default place for all movie. But now you’ll see that you are inside grBall,which is in it’s turn inside Scene 1. Click on the Scene1 word or double click outside the symbol you are editing to return to the main movie editing.

You also may create symbols not from the existing drawings, but “from scratch”. You will need to select Menu-Insert-New Symbol. It will invoke the same dialog and when you give a name and click OK – you will be brought inside the new (still empty) symbol where you may add drawings to it. If compare to the previous technique you won’t see the rest of the stage while editing drawings.

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