How to Create a Button in Flash 8
Flash, Adobe's browser plug-in, is a widely-used piece of software. However, just because it is widely used does not mean that programming Flash is widely understood. There is a great deal of flexibility in Flash, and depending on your goals, Flash programs can be relatively simple or tremendously complicated. For the beginning Flash programmer, however, one of the most basic skills is creating a button. The button creation process in Flash 8 should not take very long for an aspiring Flash programmer to master.
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Instructions
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Open Adobe Flash 8 and create a new Flash document. For an example, you could make a document that is 500x500 in size, with a frame rate of 10 fps.
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Draw a square using the rectangle tool. Use the fill tool to fill the box with a color of your choice. For example, you might pick red.
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Highlight the square if it is not already highlighted. Open the "Modify" menu and click the "Convert to Symbol" button.
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In the "Convert to Symbol" window, select "Button for Type" and name the button. Your example button could be called RedButton.
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Begin setting the button states. At the top of the screen, you will see four tabs: up, over, down, and hit. Up determines the button's color when the cursor is not on the button, which in your example would be red. Over determines the button's color when the cursor is hovering over the button. Click the "Over" tab and select a different color, such as pink. This is done by changing the square's fill color in the properties window.
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Open the "Down" tab. This will determine what color the button is when it is being clicked. Change the fill color to a different color, such as blue. Now the button will be red when left alone, pink when the cursor is hovering over it, and blue when clicked.
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Click the "Hit" tab. The hit setting will determine what the boundaries of the button are. Although it is possible to make the hit area different from the visible button's borders, a good place to start is with a button that has a hit area identical to the dimensions of the physical button. Fit the "Hit" area snugly over the button.
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Tips & Warnings
If you would like to avoid having an "over" color change, simply keep the "over" color as red. You may keep all the setting colors the same, as it is not mandatory to have your button change appearance at all.
