- Setting Selection Preferences
- Making Selections
- Resizing Graphic Elements
- Positioning Graphic Elements
- Flipping, Rotating, and Skewing
- Distorting Graphic Elements
- Modifying Fills and Strokes
- Modifying Shapes: Natural Drawing Tools
- Modifying Shapes: Bzier Tools
- Modifying Primitive-Shape Paths
- Converting Shape Types
- Practice Session
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Modifying Primitive-Shape Paths
Flash’s rectangle- and oval-primitive tools create shapes whose paths are defined by a set of properties specific to that shape. You can’t change the outline of a primitive-shape freely the way you can reshape the outline of a merge-shape or drawing-object. You can change the primitive’s defining properties by dragging control points in the shape or by setting new values for those properties in the Property inspector.
To change a rectangle-primitive’s properties interactively:
- Using the selection tool, on the Stage select the rectangle-primitive you want to modify.
The shape’s bounding box highlights, and control points appear
. Each corner has two control points. For sharp corners with a corner-radius setting of 0, the points sit directly on top
of one another; for rounded corners, a control point appears at either end of the arc that defines the corner. The two points
work in concert; dragging one moves the other.
- Position the pointer over one of the control points.
The pointer changes to a solid arrow-head.
- To modify the shape, do one of the following:
- To increase the radius (make the corner more rounded), drag the point inward.
- To decrease the radius (make the corner less rounded), drag the point outward.
You can drag diagonally toward (or away from) the center of a shape, or you can drag vertically or horizontally toward (or away from) the center of the edge containing the control point
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By default, Flash constrains the corner-radius settings so that all four corners of a rectangle-primitive have the same degree
of roundness. To create corners with various degrees of roundness, select the rectangle-primitive, access the Rectangle Options
section of the Rectangle Primitive Property inspector, and click the Constrain Corner Radius modifier to change to the unlinked
state (the open-link icon). You can then drag the control points for each corner independently, creating a variety of shapes
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To change a rectangle-primitive’s properties precisely:
- With the rectangle-primitive selected on the Stage, access the Rectangle Options section of the Rectangle Primitive Property inspector.
- To modify the shape, in the Rectangle Corner Radius fields, do one of the following:
- To create rounded corners, enter positive values.
- To create indented corners, enter negative values.
For more details about setting the values of the various properties for rectangle-primitives, see Chapter 2.
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You can’t change a square or rounded corner to an indented corner by dragging the control points; you must set a negative
value in the Property inspector. Once the rectangle-primitive has an indented corner, however, you can drag its control points
to adjust the size of the indent 
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To change an oval-primitive’s properties interactively:
- Using the selection tool, on the Stage select the oval-primitive you want to modify.
The shape’s bounding box highlights, and control points appear. Oval-primitives have four control points: one pair for the start and end angle of the outer oval and another pair for the start and end angle of the inner oval
. When the start angle and end angle of an oval have the same value, the control points lie directly on top of one another.
- Position the pointer over a control point.
The pointer changes to a solid arrow-head.
- To modify the shape, do any of the following:
- To change the start angle, drag the control point clockwise or counterclockwise around the perimeter of the oval
.
- To change the end angle, drag the control point clockwise or counterclockwise around the perimeter of the oval.
- To increase the inner radius (to create a larger space inside the oval), drag outward
.
- To decrease the inner radius (to create a smaller space inside the oval), drag inward.
- To change the start angle, drag the control point clockwise or counterclockwise around the perimeter of the oval
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To change an oval-primitive’s properties precisely:
- With the oval-primitive selected on the Stage, access the Oval Options section of the Oval Primitive Property inspector.
- In the Start Angle, End Angle, or Inner Radius fields, enter new values.
For more details about setting the values of the various properties for oval-primitives, see Chapter 2.