Flash CS4 Resources

Accessibility in the Flash workspace

The Adobe® Flash® CS4 Professional workspace is keyboard-accessible for users who may have difficulty using a mouse.

About accessibility support

Accessibility support in the authoring environment provides keyboard shortcuts for navigating and using interface controls, including panels, the Property inspector, dialog boxes, the Stage, and objects on the Stage, so that you can work with these interface elements without using the mouse.

Note: Certain keyboard controls and authoring environment accessibility features are available only in Windows.

To customize the keyboard shortcuts for accessibility in the authoring environment, use the Workspace Accessibility Commands section of the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box.

About Flash authoring accessibility on the Macintosh

Accessibility for the authoring environment on the Macintosh has the following limitations:

The Panel Focus keyboard shortcut (Command+Option+Tab) is not supported for the Property inspector.
The Panel Control Focus keyboard shortcut (Tab) is supported only for the Timeline, not for other panels or the Property inspector.

Select panels or the Property inspector with keyboard shortcuts

To select a panel or the Property inspector (also referred to as applying focus to the panel or Property inspector), use the keyboard shortcut Control+F6 (Windows) or Command+F6 (Macintosh).

Apply focus to a panel or the Property inspector only when the panel or Property inspector is visible in the application window. The panel can be expanded or collapsed.

When you use the keyboard shortcut to select panels, focus is applied to panels using the following criteria:

Docked panels are given focus first.
If the Timeline is showing and docked, the Timeline is given focus the first time you press Control+F6 (Windows) or Command+F6 (Macintosh).
If the Timeline is not showing and docked, or if you press the keyboard shortcut again, focus moves to the rightmost and highest docked panel. Pressing the keyboard shortcut repeatedly then moves the focus through the other docked panels, from right to left and from top to bottom of the workspace.
If you move the focus through all the docked panels, or if no docked panels are showing, focus moves to the rightmost and highest floating panel. Pressing the keyboard shortcut repeatedly then moves the focus through the other floating panels, from right to left and from top to bottom of the workspace.

Use keyboard shortcuts to select or deselect, expand, or collapse panels or the Property inspector

To move the focus through the panels currently displayed in the workspace, press Control+F6 (Windows) or Command+F6 (Macintosh). A dotted line appears around the title of the currently focused panel.
To move the focus to the previously selected panel, press Control+Shift+F6 (Windows) or Command+Shift+F6 (Macintosh).
To deselect a panel, press Escape, or move, dock, or undock the panel.
To move the focus to the panel above or below the current panel in a panel group, press Up Arrow or Down Arrow.
To hide all panels and the Property inspector, press F4. To display all panels and the Property inspector, press F4 again.

Use keyboard shortcuts to expand or collapse panels or the Property inspector

Press Control+F6 (Windows) or Command+F6 (Macintosh) until the panel to expand or collapse has focus. A dotted line appears around the title of the currently focused panel.
To expand or collapse the currently selected panel, press the Spacebar.

Select controls in a panel or the Property inspector using keyboard shortcuts

To move the focus through the panel controls when a panel or the Property inspector has the current focus, use the Tab key. To activate the control that has the current focus, use the Spacebar (that is, pressing Spacebar is equivalent to clicking a control in the panel).

When you use the keyboard shortcut for panel controls, focus is applied to a control and the control is activated using the following criteria:

To select a control in the panel with the Tab key, the panel with the current focus must be expanded. If the panel is collapsed, pressing Tab has no effect.
When the panel with the current focus is expanded, pressing Tab the first time moves the focus to the panel’s Panel menu.
To move the focus between the Panel menu and the panel title bar, use Right Arrow and Left Arrow.
If the focus is on the Panel menu, press Tab again to move the focus through the other controls in the panel. Pressing Tab again does not return the focus to the Panel menu.
To display the Panel menu items when the Panel menu has the focus, press Enter (Windows only).
To move the focus between the Panel menus of the panels in the group in panels that are grouped, use Up Arrow and Down Arrow.
You can move the focus to a panel control only if the control is active. If a control is dimmed (inactive), you cannot apply focus to the control.

Move the focus from a panel title bar to a panel options menu

Do one of the following:

Press Tab.
Press Right Arrow. To return the focus to the panel title bar, press Left Arrow or Shift+Tab.
To move the focus to the Panel menu of the panel immediately above the panel with the current focus if the panel is in a group, press Up Arrow. To move the focus to the Panel menu of the panel immediately below the panel with the current focus, press Down Arrow.

Move the focus through the items in the Panel menu of a panel

To display the Panel menu items when the focus currently applied to the Panel menu, press the Spacebar.
To move through the items in the Panel menu, press Down Arrow.
To activate the currently selected Panel menu item, press Enter (Windows) or Return (Macintosh).

Move the focus through the controls in a panel

Press Tab when the focus is currently applied to the Panel menu. To move the focus through the controls in the panel, press Tab repeatedly.
To activate the currently selected panel control, press Enter (Windows only).

Navigate dialog box controls using keyboard shortcuts (Windows only)

To move through the controls in the dialog box, press Tab.
To move through the controls within one section of a dialog box, press Up Arrow and Down Arrow.
To activate the button (equivalent to clicking the button), when the focus is applied to a dialog box control button, press Enter.
To apply the current settings and close the dialog box (equivalent to clicking OK), when the focus is not applied to any dialog box control button, press Enter.
To close the dialog box without applying the changes (equivalent to clicking Cancel), press Escape.
To view the Help content for the dialog box (equivalent to clicking Help), when the focus is applied to the Help button, press Enter or Spacebar.

Select the Stage or objects on the Stage using keyboard shortcuts

Selecting the Stage with a keyboard shortcut is equivalent to clicking on the Stage. Any other element currently selected becomes deselected when the Stage is selected.

After the Stage is selected, use the Tab key to navigate through all objects on all layers, one at a time. You can select instances (including graphic symbols, buttons, movie clips, bitmaps, videos, or sounds), groups, or boxes. You cannot select shapes (such as rectangles) unless those shapes are instances of symbols. You cannot select more than one object at a time using keyboard shortcuts.

To select the Stage or objects on the Stage, use the following techniques:

To select the Stage, press Control+Alt+Home (Windows) or Command+Option+Home (Macintosh).
To select an object on the Stage, with the Stage selected, press Tab.
To select the previous object when an object is currently selected, press Shift+Tab.
To select the first object that was created on the active frame in the active layer, press Tab. When the last object on the top layer is selected, press Tab to move to the next layer beneath it and select the first object there, and so on.
When the last object on the last layer is selected, press Tab to move to the next frame and select the first object on the top layer there.
Objects on layers that are hidden or locked cannot be selected with the Tab key.

Note: If you are currently typing text in a box, you cannot select an object using the keyboard focus. You must first change the focus to the Stage and then select an object.

Navigate tree structures using keyboard shortcuts

To navigate tree structures, the hierarchical displays of file structures in certain Flash panels, use keyboard shortcuts.

To expand a collapsed folder, select the folder and press Right Arrow.
To collapse an expanded folder, select the folder and press Left Arrow.
To move to the parent folder of an expanded folder, press Left Arrow.
To move to the child folder of an expanded folder, press Right Arrow.

Work with library items using keyboard shortcuts

To copy or paste a selected library item, press Control+X (Windows) or Command+X (Macintosh) to cut the item, or press Control+C (Windows) or Command+C (Macintosh) to copy the item.
To paste a cut or copied item, click the Stage or in another library to set the insertion point, and press Control+V (Windows) or Command+V (Macintosh) to paste in the center of the Stage; or press Control+Shift+V (Windows) or Command+Shift+V (Macintosh) to paste in place (in the same location as the original).
To cut, copy, and paste items, use the following techniques:
- Cut or copy one item or multiple items.
- Cut or copy an item from the Library panel and paste it onto the Stage or into another library, or paste a folder into another library.
- You cannot paste a shape from the Stage into the library.
- You cannot paste a library item into a common library, because common libraries cannot be modified. However, you can create a common library.
- When you paste a library item onto the Stage, the item is centered.
- If you paste a folder, each item in the folder is included.
- To paste a library item into a folder in the destination library, click the folder before pasting.
- You can paste a library item into a different location in the same library where it originated.
- If you attempt to paste a library item into a location containing another item by the same name, select whether to replace the existing item.