DesignWell

Most users of Final Cut Pro for any substantial length of time will likely know all of the following, but if you are just beginning the following is indispensable, especially if you are editing in the presence of your boss or your client that is waiting to tell you directions.

There are many more shortcuts than these, but if you don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t know these, you are not being as productive as you could be. I very, very much wish someone had forced me to learn the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìJKL?¢‚Ǩ¬ù+ ?¢‚Ǩ?ìIO?¢‚Ǩ¬ù + ?¢‚Ǩ?ìF9?¢‚Ǩ¬ù workflow when I was editing back in college.

Cueing/logging footage
I: Mark in
O: Mark out
J: Reverse (press repeatedly to increase speed)
K: Pause
L: Forward (press repeatedly to increase speed)
F9: Insert from Canvas to Timeline

Tools on Timeline
A: Arrow
H: Hand
B: Blade
N: Snapping
S: Slip
SS: Slide
R: Roll (single tracks)
RR: Roll (both tracks)
T: Select this track, from this point forward
TT: Select this track, from this point backward
TTT: Select all tracks from this point forward
Cmd+A: Select all tracks
P: Pen (Adjust sound and opacity on the Timeline Overlays (Opt+W))
M: Marker (I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t mark often though)

I used to log footage on paper and log clips via FCP?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Log and Capture window, but with the price and size of hard drives these days. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s easier to capture all your footage–yes, just let it sit there and eat up your disk space. If you are short on space, then–at the end–use the File>>Media Manager.

So once you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve captured all your footage, add all the usable footage to a Sequence via the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìCueing/logging footage?¢‚Ǩ¬ù keyboard shortcuts listed above. You won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t even need to use the mouse–which is always a great benefit. To start your actual timeline, duplicate the rough timeline and start moving your items around, if you need a certain cut, go back to your initial rough timeline and Copy (Cmd+C) and Paste (Cmd+V) it. If you have any additional tips to make an editor?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s life easier, please post them.

–Stephen M. James
www.smjdesign.com

NOTE: This article is only valid for ActionScript 2. In ActionScript 3, movieclip depths start at 0 and are contiguous. If you have 2 objects within a container, they will be at depths 0 and 1, respectively. You cannot have one at depth 0 and the other at 3 leaving 2 empty depths (depths 1 and 2).

So you want to change the depth of your pictures and text in Flash with ActionScript?

Check out this tutorial, Depths - How they work in Flash, at Kirupa.com. The first page you should already know if you been doing coding ActionScript professionally for some time. It is the second page that is the most interesting:

Major points of the second page:

• Timeline Zone: Flash places static items on the timeline in depths -16,384 to -1.
• Dynamic Zone: Dynamically placed movieclips are in 0 to 1,048,575 (and can only be removed from this range)
• Reserved Zone: Dynamically placed movieclips can be in 1,048,576 to 2,130,690,04, (but can’t be removed)
• The exception to these zones is createEmptyMovieClip method. There is no limit for the depth when creating an empty movieclip.
• The timeline refreshes when gotoAndPlay() is called. Timeline refreshes do not keep dynamically placed movieclips on the screen if they were placed there by a frame in the future of the timeline. Example: A movieclip is dynamically created (or swapDepths is called, placing the movieclip in the “Dynamic Zone”) in frame 10. A refresh occurs in frame 5, when gotoAndPlay(5) is called. The dynamically created movieclip (from frame 10) dissappears.
• If you use swapDepths to bring a movieclip which was placed on the timeline originally to a depth above 0 (not the Timeline Zone), then in a timeline refresh, that clip will not be removed in the clearing of the depths (the refresh) and a new instance of the same movieclip will be placed at its original depth, thus duplicating it and causing runtime errors that Flash Player will not flag.

So what is one to do? If you just swapping movieclips back and forth, like in this template for the Renaissance Pointe, then call swapDepths() with a negative value.

Looking for an Actionscript 3 tutorial?

You might try this tutorial on swapDepths for Actionscript 3.

UPDATE: This post using ActionScript 1. If you need to use ActionScript 2, try reading this post.

I spent the last day or so working on enabling a browser’s back (and consequently forward button) to navigate inside my company’s website, MB2 test site (NOTE: back button may not work at test side do to debugging).

The Idea
The idea is that you have HTML pages load into a hidden frame. If you would like to see an example, check out NikeID.com. The browser’s back button will work between sections of the all-Flash website, because a change in a hidden HTML frame will trigger a new entry in the browsers history. Then, the final trick is for the hidden HTML file to tell flash what page it is (1.html, 2.html, or 3.html) and change a variable inside the Flash movie that if changed will jump to the correct label (page1, page2, or page3) on the Flash movie’s timeline. To view my example, visit this link.

On the Shoulders of . . .
After a Google search I found this ActionScript.org Tutorial by Chris Hendershot. He based his code on Robert Penner’s script, Flash99good’s, and MustardLab.Developer’s. I was unable to find an ActionScript 2.0 version of this. If anyone know how to update this, please send an updated copy to me.

My Changes
As Chris mentions at ActionScript.org, Penner’s script doesn’t work in Safari, Mac IE 5, and Opera. My source files are a copy of Chris’s, but I believe that I have made my comments and code inside the Flash file a little clearer, so that people will not have to understand 99% of the programming in order to produce a working browser back button. I also made the page variable change when a new “page” is loaded (inside flash) instead of when the navigation button is clicked to go to the new “page.” This allows for animation between the “pages” (inside flash) which Chris’s ActionScript did not allow. I also was unable to get my version to work in Mac IE 5.

A short description of files available to download:

• 1.html - This is a file that is loaded into the hidden frame “historyframe” of “index.html” when ActionScript inside a frame labeled “page1″ inside the flash file, “test.fla”, calls a “getURL()” function
• 2.html - This is a file that is loaded into the hidden frame “historyframe” of “index.html” when ActionScript inside a frame labeled “page2″ inside the flash file, “test.fla”, calls a “getURL()” function
• 3.html - This is a file that is loaded into the hidden frame “historyframe” of “index.html” when ActionScript inside a frame labeled “page3″ inside the flash file, “test.fla”, calls a “getURL()” function
• 4.html - This is a file that is loaded into the hidden frame “historyframe” of “index.html” when ActionScript inside a frame labeled “page4″ inside the flash file, “test.fla”, calls a “getURL()” function
• MLAB_flash_setvariables.js - This is a JavaScript file that is included within flashpage.html contains functions that communicate with Flash (there is no reason to edit this file)
• flashpage.html - This is a page that loads the main flash movie (test.swf)
• gateway.fla - This is the source file for gateway.swf (there is no reason to edit this file)
• gateway.swf - This is a flash movie that contains functions that communicate with JavaScript.
• index.html - This is page that contains a frameset that has two frames, “historyframe” (for 1.html, 2.html, etc.) and “flashframe” (for flashpage.html)
• test.fla - This is the source file for test.swf that you will either need to copy ActionScript from or make the basis for your own flash movie.
• test.swf - This is the main flash movie.

To download or view the individual files, click here. The Flash file, “test.fla” is down saved to Flash MX 2004 format. A zipped archive, backbuttoninflash_SMJ.zip, of all the files can also be found in the same directory or downloaded here.

The following is a copy of the comments located in the first frame of “test.fla.

Layer: checkPage Script
The script in this frame should go in the first frame of your movie.

Layer: page Script / labels
This is the ActionScript that changes the page variable and the HTML page
(1.html, 2.html, etc) that is loaded into the hidden frame, “historyframe” of
“index.html.” The “page” labels (page1, page 2, etc) correspond to HTML pages named 1.html, 2.html, etc.

Layers: Current State/Label, variableDisplays, and FormLabels
These layers are for debugging/development purposes, so that you can see when the page variables change.

Layer: button Script
This square is present to click to go to and play the next secrion (”page”) of the Flash movie.

Layer: onClipEventEnterFrameMovie
This rectangle is present to constantly check to see if the page variable has
changed. The rectangle has a movieclip script instead of a timeline frame script. It calls the function checkPage() which is on the checkPage Script layer. That function will constantly check to see if you are on the right page
(according to the JavaScript inside the HTML pages).

–Stephen M. James
http://www.smjdesign.com/