Basic navigation menu

This Flash tutorial will show you how to create a basic navigation menu. This tutorial is fairly straightforward and requires some knowledge of basic buttons and action script.

There are two parts to creating the basic navigation menu: creating the button and adding the actions to the button.

Basic navigation menu

Step 1 (creating button)

Open a new Flash document with the height and width at 200px. Select the rectangle tool (r) and drag a rectangle shape on the stage. You can choose whatever fill colour you wish.


Step 2

Now select and copy your rectangle shape and paste as many menu items as you need. I have used four menu items. To copy your rectangle you select: Edit > Select All and then you select Edit > Copy to copy your rectangle shape. And finally you paste as many rectangle as you need by selecting Edit > Paste.

You stage should look similar like below:




Step 3

Select the text tool (t) and type the names of your menu items inside the box. I used Franklin Gothic Medium Cond font type with 13 font size.



Convert each for menu items into a symbol by pressing F8. Give your symbol an appropriate name, check button and click ok.

I adjusted each of my button’s overstates with a different shade and move the text slightly to the right. Have a look at the basic buttons tutorial for more information.




Step 4 (adding actions)

To add actions to your buttons you right click on your button and select actions from the drop down menu. And then enter the following code for each button:

on (release) {
getURL("http://www.ilike2flash.blogspot.com","_blank");
}


** This opens the above webpage in a new window. If you want to open the webpage in the same window use: getURL("http://www.youraddress.com","_self");


Step 5

Test your movie clip Ctrl + enter. Move your mouse over the menu items and select the menu items.



You should now have a basic navigation menu.