Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 : Wireframing an Application in Flash Catalyst - Run a Project

1. Run a Project

The design view in Catalyst shows you exactly what your final project will look like. Because your project will run in Flash Player, which also renders projects in exactly the same way regardless of the operating system or browser through with it is playing, you can be sure that the design you see in Catalyst is what your users will see.

Despite this, you will still want to run your project and view it in Flash Player in a browser. Primarily, this allows you to test interactive elements. Scrollbars, for example, don't work in the Catalyst design view; you must run the project in order to test them.

You can run a project by choosing File => Run Project (see Figure 1) or by pressing Ctrl+Enter . When you do so, Catalyst compiles the project, opens your computer's default browser, and launches the project (see Figure 2). Because it must compile the project before running, this process may take a few seconds to complete.

Figure 1. Choose File Run Project to test your project.

Figure 2. The project running in Flash Player in Internet Explorer

NOTE

Flash Professional users will be familiar with running or testing projects using the Ctrl+Enter shortcut. Developers familiar with Flash Builder, or Flex Builder as it was called in earlier versions, may try to use its Run Project shortcut, Ctrl-F11. Unfortunately, this shortcut does nothing in Catalyst.

Catalyst doesn't provide a means by which users can control which browser is used to launch the project; it simply opens the computer's default browser. If you want to test your project in another browser, copy the project's URL from your default browser and paste it into a different browser, but keep in mind that as the project runs in Flash Player, there will not be any difference when viewing the page between browsers.

The minimum required version of Flash Player should have been installed when you installed Catalyst, but if for some reason it was not, you can download and install the latest version of the player from Adobe's Web site at www.adobe.com.

2. Saving a Project

As with any file on your computer, you should be in the habit of saving often. Catalyst does not have an auto save feature, so if your computer crashes or you experience a power outage, you will lose any work you have done so far.

You can save your project by choosing File => Save As. Catalyst projects are saved as an FXP file. You can save your project anywhere on your computer, but be sure to save it in a location that you will remember later.