ActionScript editor changes

The ActionScript editor has been updated in a number of ways to make it more robust and easier to use. These changes are summarized in this section.

Word wrapping You can now use the Options pop-up menu in the Script pane, Debugger panel, and Output panel to enable or disable word wrapping. You can also toggle word wrapping using the pop-up menu in the Actions panel. The keyboard shortcut is Control+Shift+W (Windows) or Command+Shift+W (Macintosh).

Viewing context-sensitive help When your pointer is positioned over an ActionScript language element in the Actions toolbox or in the Script pane, you can use the View Help item in the context menu to display a help page about that element.

Importing scripts When you select Import Script from the pop-up menu in the Actions panel, the imported script is copied into the script at the insertion point in your code file. In previous versions of Flash, importing a script overwrote the contents of the existing script.

Single-click breakpoints To add a debugging breakpoint before a line of code in the Debugger panel or the Script pane of the Actions panel, you can click in the left margin. In previous versions of Flash, clicking in the left margin selected a line of code. The new way to select a line of code is to Control-click (Windows) or Command-click (Macintosh).

Normal and expert modes no longer in Actions panel In previous versions of Flash, you could work in the Actions panel either in normal mode, in which you filled in options and parameters to create code, or in expert mode, in which you added commands directly into the Script pane. In Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004, you can work in the Actions panel only by adding commands directly to the Script pane. You can still drag commands from the Actions toolbox into the Script pane or use the Add (+) button above the Script pane to add commands to a script.

Pinning multiple scripts You can pin multiple scripts within a FLA file along the bottom of the Script pane in the Actions panel. In previous versions of Flash, you could pin only one script at a time.

Script navigator The left side of the Actions panel now contains two panes: the Actions toolbox and a new Script navigator. The Script navigator is a visual representation of the structure of your FLA file; you can navigate through your FLA file here to locate ActionScript code.

Integrated Script window for editing external files (Flash Professional only) You can use the ActionScript editor in a Script window (separate from the Actions panel) to write and edit external script files. Syntax coloring, code hinting, and other preferences are supported in the Script window, and the Actions toolbox is also available. To display the Script window, use File > New and then select the type of external file you want to edit. You can have multiple external files open at the same time; filenames are displayed on tabs across the top of the Script window. (The tabs appear only in Windows.)