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Edit animation symbols



You can change a variety of symbol properties, such as animation opacity and rotation. You can make a symbol appear to rotate, speed up, fade in and out, or any combination of these properties.

A key property is number of states. When you set this property, Fireworks automatically adds to the document the number of states required to complete the action. If the symbol requires more states than currently exist in the animation, Fireworks asks whether to add extra states.

You change animation properties using either the Animate dialog box or the Property inspector.

To adjust animation speed, see Set state duration. To edit text, graphics, strokes, fills, or effects, see Edit a symbol and all of its instances and Edit specific symbol instances.

    Animation symbol properties

    States
    The number of states in the animation. You can specify up to 250 with the slider or enter any number in the States box. The default is 5.

    Move
    (Animate dialog box only) The distance, in pixels, that the object moves. The default is 72, but it has no limit. Movement is linear, and there are no key states (unlike in Flash and Adobe Director).

    Direction
    (Animate dialog box only) The direction, in degrees from 0 to 360º, in which the object moves. You can also change Movement and Direction values by dragging the animation handles of the object.

    Scaling
    The change in symbol size, as a percentage, from start to finish. The default is 100%, but it has no limit. To scale an object from 0% to 100%, the original object must be small; vector objects are recommended.

    Opacity
    The degree of fade in or out from start to finish. Values range from 0 to 100, and the default is 100%. Creating a fade in/fade out requires two instances of the same symbol—one to play the fade in, and the other to play the fade out.

    Rotation
    The degree of rotation from start to finish. Values range from 0 to 360º. You can enter higher values for more than one rotation. The default is 0º.

    CW and CCW
    The direction in which the object rotates, either clockwise (CW) or counterclockwise (CCW).

    Change animation symbol properties

    1. Select an animation symbol.

    2. Select Modify > Animation > Settings to open the Animate dialog box. Select Window > Properties to open the Property inspector if it is not already open.

    3. Change the properties.

    4. If you’re using the Animate dialog box, click OK to accept the changed properties.

    Remove animations

    You can remove animations either by deleting the animation symbol from the library or by removing the animation from the symbol.

    Remove the animation from a selected animation symbol

     Select Modify > Animation > Remove Animation.

    The symbol becomes a graphic symbol and is no longer animated. If you later reconvert the symbol to an animation symbol, it retains its previous animation settings.

    Remove a symbol from the document library

    1. In the Document Library panel, select the animation symbol.

    2. Drag the symbol to the trash can icon in the lower right corner.

    Change the movement or direction of a symbol

    A selected animation symbol has a unique bounding box and a motion path indicating the direction in which the symbol moves.

    The green dot on the motion path indicates the starting point, and the red dot shows the end point. The blue points on the path represent states. For example, a symbol with five states has one green dot, three blue dots, and one red dot on its path. If the object appears at the third dot, State 3 is the current state.

    You can change the direction of the motion by changing the angle of the path.

    View full size graphic

     Drag one of the animation start or end handles of the object to a new location. Shift‑drag to constrain the direction of movement to 45° increments.