Manipulating Frames in Multiple Layers | Macromedia Flash 8 for Windows & Macintosh

As your animation gets more complex, you'll need to add layers to your document. You can perform editing operations on selected frames and layers, for example, by copying, cutting, and pasting frames across multiple layers. You can also insert frames, keyframes, and blank keyframes into selected frame spans and layers.

To select and copy frames in several layers

Create a Flash document that contains 3 layers, each with 20 frames.

Place content in the layers to help you see what's going on as you work with the various frames and layers. Use the text tool, for example, to place the frame number in every other frame of layer 1 and to place a text block with the name of the layer in layers 2 and 3.

In the Timeline in layer 3, to make frame selections, do either of the following:

In frame-based selection mode, click and drag as though you were drawing a selection rectangle from frame 5 through frame 10 in all three layers.
In span-based selection mode, -click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows), and drag to select a range of frames.

Flash highlights the selected frames (Figure 11.6).

Figure 11.6. In frame-based selection mode, click and drag across frames and layers (top) to select frames in those layers (bottom).

Choose Edit > Timeline > Copy Frames.

Flash copies the frames and layer information to the Clipboard.

Tip

To select a block of frames that spans several layers without dragging, in frame-based selection mode, click a frame at one of the four corners of the block. Then Shift-click the frame at the opposite corner. Flash selects all the frames in the rectangle that you've defined (Figure 11.7). In span-based selection style, -click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows) one corner, and then Shift--click (Mac) or Ctrl-Shift-click (Windows) the opposite corner to make your selection.

Figure 11.7. To select a block of frames without dragging, in frame-based selection mode, click one corner of the block; then Shift-click the opposite corner to define the block. In span-based selection mode, -click (Mac) or Ctrl-click (Windows) the first corner, and then Shift--click (Mac) or Ctrl-Shift-click (Windows) the opposite corner of your selection block.

To replace the content of frames with a multilayer selection

1.	Continuing with the document you created in the preceding task, select frames 1520 on all three layers.
2.	Choose Edit > Timeline > Paste Frames. Flash pastes the copied frames 510 into frames 1520 in each of the three layers. The numbers on the Stage in layer 1 now start over with 5 at frame 15, 7 at frame 17, and 9 at frame 19.

To paste a multiple-layer selection into blank frames

Continuing with the document you created in the preceding task, select frame 21 on all three layers.

Choose Edit > Timeline > Paste Frames.

Flash pastes the copied frames 510 into protoframes 2126 in each of the three layers (Figure 11.8). Layer 1 now displays the number 5 at frame 21, 7 at frame 23, and 9 at frame 25.

Figure 11.8. Pasting a multiple-layer, multiple-frame selection at the end of a set of defined frames (top) extends the Timeline to accommodate the new frames and layers (bottom).

To paste a multiple-layer selection into a new scene

Continuing with the document you created in the preceding task, insert a new scene, following the instructions in the first section of this chapter.

By default, the new scene has one layer and one keyframe.

Select keyframe 1.

Choose Edit > Timeline > Paste Frames.

Flash pastes the copied selection from the first scene (frames 510 on layers 13) into the new scene. Flash adds layers 2 and 3 and creates frames 16 in each layer (Figure 11.9). Layer 1 now displays the number 5 at frame 1, 7 at frame 3, and 9 at frame 5.

Figure 11.9. When you paste a multiple-layer, multiple-frame selection into the first frame of a new scene (top), Flash creates new layers and frames to hold the contents of the Clipboard (bottom).