Flash 5: Fly-Out Menus (Animated)

Source Files: Download
Level: Medium
Version: 4,5

Menus are the foundation for every website and in this lesson we’re going to demonstrate a basic technique for creating fly out menus in Flash 5. We’re going to work with Frame Labels and GoTo actions to create these menus.

Step 1: Creating the menu items

1. Type out some text or draw a shape to be the Menu button
2. Convert it to a Button by selecting it and clicking F8
3. Convert the Button you just created to a Movie Clip by selecting it and clicking F8 again and this time selecting Movie Clip. This places the button inside the Movie Clip. It's inside this Movie Clip where we're going to create all the menu actions and sub menus.

Step 2: Organizing your layers and preparing your menu

1. Create 6 new Layers by clicking the Insert Layer button 6 times
2. Drag one of the new, blank layers you just created to the very bottom of the stacking order. The bottom layer needs to be blank for now.
3. Name your layers from top to bottom as follows: Actions, Labels, About, Products, Contact, Main Menu, and Invisible Button
4. Add 40 Frames to the movie by clicking at Frame 1 of the Actions Layer and dragging down to the bottom layer to select the frames and then click F5 to add the Frames
5. Create Stop Actions at Frame 1 and Frame 22 of the Actions Layer
6. Create a Frame Label called Normal at Frame 1 of the Labels Layer and a Frame Label called Over at Frame10 of the Labels Layer
7. Create a Keyframe (F6) at Frame 10 for the About, Products, and the Contact Layers
8. Create a button for each of the About, Products, and Contact Layers and place each one at Frame 10
9. Align the 3 buttons using either your Arrow Keys or the Align Panel

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