Flash Tip: Program Tools: Movie Explorer

As you build more complex movies in Flash, you're going to find that selecting a single item on your stage amidst a multitude of items on increasingly varied layers.....isn't as easy as it used to be. You may not even be able to see some of the items you're looking for, if they're buried under other layers or even off-stage; some movie clips won't show at all if their first frame is blank, and there you are trying to click on something invisible in the hopes that you're hitting the right thing.

It doesn't have to be so difficult. The Movie Explorer window lets you view all of your items by name, type, layer, and frame, organized in a Windows-style tree that makes picking one object out from the others effortless.