Saving and Publishing Your Work

Up to this point, I haven't mentioned saving. Some of you have probably done it along the way anyway, knowing that computers can crash. If you haven't, take a moment now to do a simple save. Saving in Flash 4 creates a file with in the Macromedia Flash Movie format. This file will work in the program, but cannot be put on the Web. To get our work transformed into the format we want to distribute, we need to "Publish" it. Let's start by checking the settings under File> Publish Settings. For now, we will leave most of these settings alone. The format tab shows us what file types with what filenames will be created. We want the Flash and HTML boxes to be checked for our purposes. If you want a GIF to be displayed if a Web visitor doesn't have the Flash plug-in, then checking that box will create one. If you want to use this feature, make sure you have the frame you want to be shown in the GIF selected before publishing.

Once we have the Flash and HTML boxes checked, we can continue to the HTML tab. I am skipping the Flash tab right now, because those setting don't need to be changed for this simple project. As with all settings and options, make sure you mess around with them at some point to learn what they can do. Under the HTML tab, we want the template set to "Flash only" and the dimensions set to "Match Movie." Also, all of the boxes for the playback options should be unchecked. This is all we need to do, but take a look at the other options available to you.

We can publish our movie from this window with the Publish button or, after clicking OK, go to File> Publish. Publishing creates two files for us, the HTML code needed to put our flash movie on the Web and the actually movie file. This file is a Shockwave Flash Movie unlike the saved file type and can be viewed over the Web.

The Final Product

Now all of that hard work has paid off and you have to admit it wasn't that painful. You've made it through Flash creation. Open the .html file in your Web browser and see what happens.

We've barely scratched the surface of what's possible in Flash 4, but now you should have a basic understanding of how everything works. The simple animation techniques we used, coupled with the interactive features touched on are the foundation of every great flash site. For more information, check out our sister site, flashkit.com.