This tutorial was written for the Flash Designer software, which allows you to create flash animations in a much easier way than by using Macromedia Flash. You may get Flash Designer here.

Image Background Button

This example shows a clipart image used as button background.

To create image background button:

1. Import the image on a master frame
2. Draw the button on the next frame
3. Select the button and choose "Item" > "Edit Properties"
4. Set button background, set the bitmap in "Custom Background" field
5. Set OnOver color (the button with change the color if the user moves mouse over it)
6. Set button fill color that matches general color tone of the bitmap (this color must be set if you use OnOver color)

Sprite Background Button

The following example demonstrates using a sprite as button background.

To create custom background button:

1. Create the background object on a master frame
2. Draw the button on the next frame
3. Select the button and choose "Item" > "Edit Properties"
4. Set button background as illustrated below:

Complex Buttons

You can build your own buttons that consist of 3 state items - normal appearance, onclick appearance and onover appearance. Also you can define active area of the button. By default the active area is rectangular.

To create custom button choose "Button" tool from the toolbox. Draw a button. Choose "Item" > "Edit Properties" to define custom appearance of the button. Delete button text and enter object names in "Custom Background", "OnOver" , "OnClick" and "Hit Area" edit fields. (Open the file button.sfd to see the definition of the button)