Linking layers?

Question

hi all. i am so new here it is silly, there is soooo much
info i started with some searches but cannot find anything here nor
on the many tutorials online to solve my issue so here goes.
worth mentioning is that i only dabble in flash so i am not
very good at it.
you can see the flash animation i created at
http://www.aparcamac.com/index.php/1.htm
(in the main content section when the page loads).
i made the background red so you can see the problem.
you will notice the huge red space underneath the animation
where the hands pull back to when they take the laptop off the
dock.
i created the document 530x530 pix but when i give it that
size in the embed, it cuts the external monitor off at the top, no
matter what i do, it leaves a ton of space at the bottom. those
hands that take the macbook pro away should leave the movie scene
well before they actually do now, in other words, the movie seems
to be way too high on the canvas (so to speak). in order to make
the entire external monitor there viewable, i need to make the
embed size 720 high by 530 wide. that allows for more space at the
top but still leaves the space i do not want at the bottom.
my question is can i link the layers in flash so that i can
slide them all down to the bottom and fix this? i cannot find a
link layers tool or option like in photoshop to be able to move the
layers all at once. i need to move them all down 116 pixels in
order to have the movie where it belongs, at the bottom of the
document and hence get rid of that bottom space and be able to
embed at 530x530 pix as it was meant to.
i am sure this is easy for most of you but it is killing me.
short of moving every layer down manually 116 pix. (there are
9 layers and i do not want to mess any of them up by moving them
the wrong amt. of pixels), i do not know what to do.
the document should end where the red background begins.
thanks in advance.
saludos,
jer...

Answer 1

This is something that is a pain in the rear, and I wish
Macromedia/Adobe would have fixed a long time ago. Layer linking so
you can affect all keyframes at once.....
To do this, you need to use Onion Skinning.....
If you don't know onion skinning, it is a method that allows
you to see the previous/next frames content, so you can more
readily change the frame you are on, when animating by hand.
Just a word of warning before you start. This is an extremely
processor intensive process. The more frames you have the slower
your computer will go, and the easier it will be to get the
computer to crash.
At the bottom of the timeline, you have a small row of
buttons. In Flash CS3 the buttons go in the following order:
- Scroll to Playhead
- Onion Skin
- Onion Skin Outlines
- Edit Multiple Frames
- Modify Onion Markers
- Current Frame
- Framerate
- Elapsed Time
I think the layout is a bit different in Flash 8, so hover
over the buttons to get the tooltip that tells you which button it
is.
You need to turn on the second and fourth in that list (Onion
Skin & Edit Multiple Frames) You will notice that handles have
appeared on either side of your playhead.
- Put your playhead on the first frame of your animation.
- Drag the handle on the right side of your playhead the
whole way to the last frame of your animation.
- Put your playhead on the last frame of your animation.
- Drag the handle on the left side of your playhead the whole
way to the first frame of the animation.
This causes Flash to display the content of your entire
animation at once. (This is why it is processor intensive)
Now, select every frame (all layers) on the timeline, which
selects all of the content in the entire project. From there you
can nudge it all down appropriately, and everything will come with
you.
Hope this helps...