Drawing in Flash: the rectangle tool

Mr. Evenski gratefully acknowledges the source of this information and images: echoecho.com. Visit this site for other excellent tutorials and to see this information in its original form.

The Rectangle tool is used to make rectangular objects. Simply select the tool and drag on the Stage to draw a rectangle that spans between the start and end points.

SHIFT key : Proportioned Squares

You can press the Shift key while dragging to constrain proportions for the rectangle, to ensure your rectangle is a perfect square.

Rounded Corners

You can specify the rounding of the corners with the "Round Rectangle Options" at the bottom of the toolbox.

Ctrl+G : Grouping Outline with Fill

When you draw a rectangle, Flash actually creates two objects: the fill and the outline. This may cause problems if you want to move your rectangle to a new position, because if you fail to select both objects, only the one selected will be moved. To avoid this it's often a good idea to "group" the outline with the fill, thus locking them together as if they were a single object.

1: Make sure both the fill and the outline are selected.
(You can do this in two ways: 1) Select the Arrow tool in the toolbox, and while holding down the SHIFT key click on both the fill and the outline. 2) Select the Arrow tool in the toolbox, and drag a rectangle outside your rectangle)

2: Press Ctrl+G to group the selected objects.

(If at a later point you want to "break" apart the grouped objects, you can do it by selecting the grouped object then pressing Ctrl+B).

Skewing

Before skewing a rectangle make sure it has been grouped. You can skew the rectangle in two ways.

To skew an object by dragging:

1. Select the object with the Arrow tool.
2. Click the Rotate button in the toolbox options.
3. Drag one of the centered handles.



To skew an object using the Transform panel:

1. Select the object.
2. Choose Window > Panels> Transform.
3. Click Skew.
4. Enter angles for the horizontal and vertical values.

Precise size and positioning

You can position the Rectangle perfectly using the info panel.

Info Panel : Window > Panels > Info


The "square" connected to the line where it says "Click this square" is used to set the origin for coordinates - either at top left or center of the stage.

Fields for X and Y are used to enter the position of the selected object.

Fields for W and H are used to enter the width and height of the selected object.

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