Tutorial Details
- Difficulty: Basix
- Software Used: Flash Pro
- Estimated Completion Time: 15 seconds
- Preview Image: nemzetikonyvtar on Flickr
In this Quick Tip we’ll take a look at a Flash feature that will help us remove any unused item in our library to keep our project clean and save some bytes. Read on to learn more!
Step 1: Brief Overview
It would be difficult to manually select the items that you decided not to use in a big project, that is why Flash Professional includes an option to automatically detect which items are not in use. Follow the next steps to find out how.
Step 2: Open any Flash Project
Select any Flash Project you’ve created and open it. I’ll be using a version of my Blackjack tutorial.
Step 3: Open Library
Go to Window > Library or press Cmd+L to open the Library Panel.
Step 4: Selecting Items
In the Library Panel, locate the top-right corner and press the lines icon.
A drop down menu will appear:
Click on the Select Unused Items option and, automatically, Flash will detect the items that are not in stage or called by ActionScript. Press the Trash icon or hit delete in the keyboard to erase the items.
Conclusion
Clean your project’s Library using this method!
How’s that for a Quick Tip? Thank you for reading!
This has to be the simplest thing in Flash I never knew about.
Very good, that is what i don’t know for years, Thanks and keep goin’ :D
I had no idea you can do that… Thanks :)
I actually have an script that organizes all your files in folders depending on the kind such as Movie Clips, Bitmaps, Fonts…… you can get it at http://www.jsCampos.com/files/Library_Organizer.jsfl
Wow! That easy and nobody knows about! Thank you, Carlos, for pointing our eyes to this feature.
# For Beginners: Only tidy up all assets in your library when you are done with your project. Afterwards, of course, you won’t be able to use the removed assets anymore.
besides@Carlos: In my RSS reader I just saw your post showing the “black jack” image at first, – and thought, oh not gambling ads (in activetuts+)!… but just then I realized that this image is part of your tutorial. So for the next time, my advice, better not using gambling images…
i’ve been developing in flash for almost 3 years and i didn’t know about this simple thing :p
BEWARE! If you’re dynamically calling in objects from the library, flash often considers these assets as unused items. NEVER select unused items and then hit the delete key without inspecting everything first or you could end up in a world of pain.
Actually, if you are exporting for actionscript and have the export in first frame selected, Flash is smart enough to know not to select them as unused items. At least in the newer versions!
Personaly I don’t use the “select unused items/trash” combination on projects where movie clips are dynamically called from the library and placed on the stage… just like Stu pointed out.
Hmmm… it’s very simple
I usually use f-in-box flash library.