Note: if you don't have Flash, you can get a free 30 day Flash trial from Adobe. Once installed, start Flash and come back to the Flash Basics tutorial.

This wiki is only a brief overview of the bare basics of Flash CS4. Consider this a starting point if you are not familiar with flash or a springboard for more advanced topics. We will briefly cover the UI and common terms in flash. If this isn't quite what you're looking for, consider searching for a specific term in the search box.

Step 1: Open Flash. If this is your first time in Flash, the screen should look similar to this:

Step 2: Under "Create New" click "Flash File (Actionscript 3.0)" to create a new Flash document with the .fla extension - the default format for Flash files. Flash files are eventually published with the .swf extension, but we'll get to that later.

After creating the new Flash file, you should see something similar to the following screen:

The default workspace in Flash CS4 is made up of the following elements:

• Timeline - The timeline is where you will be working with layers and frames to modify your movie's content.
• Stage - The stage is the main area where you add every piece of content to be viewed in your movie.
• Properties tab - The properties tab is where you go to modify specifications for a particular selected item.
• Tools - The tools offer you a number of ways to modify anything in the stage.
• Library - The library is where all of your symbols and objects live, waiting to be placed.

Step 3: Almost anything you draw in the stage has properties that can be changed. Let's start by clicking the rectangle tool . Notice how the properties tab changes to reflect our new options which are relevant to the rectangle:

You can fill (inside) and stroke (border) color, as well as stroke style and thickness. You can also manually set the size and rotation of the rectangle. Go ahead and draw out a rectangle now. Notice that you are able to modify the properties of the rectangle after it has been created.

Optional Step: I should note here that any object you create or bring into flash needs to be converted into a symbol before you can use actionscript to modify it. Almost everything we do with games uses actionscript, so you should make it a habit to convert everything. To do that, click on the object you want to convert, click "Modify" then "Convert to Symbol" or just right click on the object and choose "Convert to Symbol."

Step 4: Now choose the selection tool and click anywhere in the white area outside of any shapes you have drawn. This should show us the movie properties tab, seen below:

Optional Step: From here you can change the size of the movie, background color, frame rate and some properties relating to publishing the finished product. Feel free to change the size and background color however you see fit. The higher the framerate, the smoother the game runs. Unfortunately, high frame rates make slow computers run poorly, so be careful when setting this. In general, around 30 fps should be adequate for a flash game.

Note that if you want to reselect the entire rectangle you must double click. Single clicking the shape will only select the fill area and not the stroke. Double clicking the shape will select both.

Step 5: Go up to "Control" and click "Test Movie" to see what you have so far. You should see a box with your rectangle and any other objects you made:

Congratulations! You've completed your first flash movie! It's not much, but everyone has to start somewhere. Where should you go from here? That's is up to you. You can read some of the recommended articles below, check out other more advanced tutorials or just play around with Flash on your own for awhile.

Recommended articles:

The following articles will greatly help you understand the other elements essential to Flash CS4. If you're not experienced in flash, it's highly recommended that you read through these.

• Timeline
• Library
• Tools