Posted on Feb 5, 2008

I often have to work over Flash files started by others and auto replace elements and make changes to existing animations. One of the main problem is dealing with Flash files where the designer obviously has not clue as to how to use Flash effectively. Using Flash effectively is like creating good Photoshop files. You know, those where all layers are named and assembled in folders! Well in Flash, there are a few things good designers and developers should do. 1-Transform any item that you want to animate into a symbol. Do not just use motion tween over texts and other elements. It creates a bunch of automatic tweens in the Library that are hard to get rid of and make the file more complicated to use. 2-When converting an element into a symbol, give a distinctive name to that symbol. Don't just let elements be called "Graphic 1." Generic names on symbols means they can be replaced and erased easily, when merging elements from other FLA files that were also authored by sloppy designers... 3-Remove unwanted and useless Library elements and compact your Flash file often to avoid it becoming a hog on a computer system, by carrying material that is unused. If you do all of these things, you'll be able to collaborate with other Flash designers with others easily and effectively.