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Flash Reference Guide

Aug 22, 2003

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Working in FreeHand for the Flash Power User

As you might know, the latest release FreeHand is no longer a member of the Macromedia/Adobe Studio line. This does not mean that the product can no longer work with Flash and Fireworks. In point of fact, FreeHand remains one of the best design tools to use with Flash.

Some of FreeHand’s features jump out at long-time Flash users the moment they open the program because the two products are so similar in many respects. The most obvious is that FreeHand and Flash both share the same dock layout.

Working with Panels

If you haven't already done so, go ahead and open FreeHand. You will see that all of your panels are now placed on the right-hand side of the screen. Many of your favorite panels are placed together in what are now called groups. A panel group is a collection of similar panels.

Adobe has created several different panel groups that appear by default when you open FreeHand. This does not mean that you are fixed into Adobe's group selection. As with all Macromedia/Adobe Studio products, you can change the name of any group collection and the placement of the groups on the screen. If you're like me, then you probably do not use all the panels all the time. I find that I tend to go through fads of using one tool over another.

Changing a panel is not that difficult. The easiest way to change a panel is by selecting the top right-hand panel selector. One of the first options you have in the panel selector is the ability to rename the panel. You'll probably want to do this as some of the names for the panels don't adequately describe their functions. For instance, one panel that I use a lot is the Properties panel group comprised of two panels named Object and Information. For me, it makes more sense to name this the "Object and Info" panel group so that I know immediately what the panel can do just by looking just at its title. Feel free to use any naming convention that you like.

Fill and Stroke

Other features that will be familiar to you come in large and small sizes. For me, the most exciting new feature it the Fill and Stroke color selectors. If you are a Fireworks fan, then you have been using these selectors for years. The color selectors have been used since Flash 4 and to Dreamweaver 1, and are also found in FreeHand. By default, when you select a color selector, it gives you a list of the 256 web-safe colors. These are colors that have been determined to show correctly on any computer, no matter whether you are running Windows, Macintosh, or Linux operating systems.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Another similarity between Flash and FreeHand are the keyboard shortcuts. As I work on projects, I don’t like switching from the keyboard to the mouse; doing so slows me down. Instead, when I am working extensively with the keyboard, I like to keep my fingers punching away (got to feel sorry for the level of abuse I place on my little stubbies—I am sure it will come back to haunt me). To help me, all of the tools within FreeHand can now be accessed through keyboard commands. And, to make my life as a Flash designer just really peachy, all the tools that are the same between Flash and FreeHand have the same keyboard shortcuts. That means when I press V, I get the Pointer tool in both Flash and FreeHand. When I press A, I get the Sub-Selector tool. My life is now so much simpler. You know, they always say it is the little things.

But what if you do not like the keyboard shortcuts that come with FreeHand by default? What if you want different keyboard combinations to grant you access to the tools on the screen? Not a problem. Just choose Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts and up pops the Keyboard Shortcuts program that allows you to change the shortcuts of FreeHand to match those of other popular programs you may have used. This means that you can change the settings in FreeHand to be the same as Illustrator, Corel Draw, or even an earlier version of FreeHand. In short, you are not stuck with Adobe’s defaults.

Designing with FreeHand

Although I think Flash is the best vector-based graphics program on the market, there are times when I rely on FreeHand for creating vector-based graphics. That’s because the focus of Flash is on animated graphics whereas FreeHand focuses on illustrated graphics. It is intended to create still images for design, logo creation, and print. Animation and movement are not FreeHand's strengths. This is a good thing. If Macromedia had two products that could do the same thing, there would be a lot of head scratching.

For best results, use a combination of FreeHand and Flash, taking advantage of each program’s strong suit. There are an ever increasing number of vector graphics tools on the market, however only a handful work really well with Flash. FreeHand is certainly one of those. Through a consistent interface and useful export tools, you will find that FreeHand is the ideal design tool companion to Flash.

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