Creating a simple linear gradient in flash.
Lately, many of my colleagues have been complaining about the Adobe suite of products, in particular for UI or stability issues.
Here is one workflow that has been bugging me since the Flash 4/Flash 5 days. Play with me at home :)
Create a simple linear gradient in Flash CS4:
1. click on the Rectangle tool item
2. click and drag to draw a rectangle
3. change to the ‘Select’ tool (v keyboard shortcut)
4. click on the item you just drew
5. click on the Fill Color item in the properties
6. press Esc when you remember again that the gradients aren’t there.
7. click on Window > Color to open the color palette
8. click on the type dropdown box to change the color type from Solid to Linear
9. realise that when you hit Esc earlier, you deseleted the object, so click on the object, then repeat step 8
9. click and hold on the free transform tool in the toolbar, to select the gradient transform tool
10. hold shift and drag the gradient transform corner to rotate by 90 degrees, because the gradients are ALWAYS vertical and never horizontal
11. adjust the colors of the gradient in the color pallette
12. DONE!
There are many solutions, like remembering more shortcut keys, leaving the color pallette open, creating a JSFL command for rotating the gradient (if that’s possible), even saving some preset gradients which would be quicker to modify. Yet for some reason, I seem to go through this ritual a lot and fail every time.
My stupidity, or bad workflow?
