- When Lines Intersect Lines
- When Lines and Fills Interact
- When Shapes Interact
- Understanding Grouping
- Working with Grouped Elements
- Controlling the Stacking Order
- Editing Groups
- Aligning Elements
- Using the Complex Paint Modes with the Brush
- Applying Gradients to Multipart Shapes
- Using the Eraser Tool with Multiple Shapes
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Editing Groups
Although you can transform a group as a whole (scale, rotate, and skew it), you can't directly edit the individual shapes within the group, the way that you can edit an ungrouped shape. To edit the shapes within a group, you must use the Edit Selected command.
To edit the contents of a group:
In the Toolbox, select the arrow tool.
On the Stage, select the group you want to edit.
From the Edit menu, choose Edit Selected.
Flash enters group-editing mode (Figure 4.26). The info bar just above the Stage changes to indicate that you are in group-editing mode. The bounding box for the selected group disappears, and Flash dims all the items on the Stage that are not part of the selected group. These dimmed items are not editable; they merely provide context for editing the selected group.
Figure 4.26 These eyes and eyebrows are a selected group that's being edited. The other objects on the Stage are grayed out to indicate that you can't edit them.Tip
When you have the Property Inspector open, you can see—and change—the height, width, and x and y coordinates of the bounding box of a selected group (Figure 4.27).
Figure 4.27 The Property Inspector displays the height, width, and x and y coordinates for the bounding box of a group that you've selected on the Stage. Enter new values to change any of those parameters.
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Figure 4.26)
Figure 4.27To return to movie-editing mode:
Do one of the following:
From the Edit menu, choose Edit All (Figure 4.28).
Figure 4.28 You have several ways to return to movie-editing mode when you are editing a group. From the Edit menu, choose Edit All. Or you can click items in the info bar: the Back button, the scene name, and the Scene pop-up menu all let you resume editing the movie.Double-click the Stage or the work area away from the shapes in the group you're editing.
Click the current scene name in the info bar.
Click the Back button in the info bar.
Tips
With the arrow tool selected, you can enter group-editing mode quickly by double-clicking a grouped item on the Stage.
If in addition to returning to movie-editing mode, you want to work on a different scene, you can simply choose it from the pop-up menu of scenes in the info bar. Flash takes you to the new scene in movie-editing mode. (To learn more about scenes, see Chapter 11.)
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Figure 4.28