To fill space with a repeating grid:

1. In the tools panel, select the deco tool, or press U

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2. Access the Drawing Effect section of the Property inspector, and from the pop-up menu, choose Grid Fill

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Flash CS5 comes with 13 drawing-effect patterns. Grid Fill creates a grid pattern using up to four different symbols. With default settings, the tool lays down a regular pattern of black squares to cre-ate a grid that fills the Stage or a shape.

3. To create a grid using squares of vari-ous colors, do the following:

> In the Tile 1 section, click the Color control to access the pop-up swatch set and select a new color.

Make sure that the Tile 1 checkbox and Default Shape checkbox are selected;

they are selected by default when you choose the deco tool for the first time

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Choosing Grid Fill and selecting the Default Shape checkbox creates a grid pattern using squares.

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Stage clicked to start grid Stars placed first

4. Repeat Step 3 using the Tile 2, Tile 3, and Tile 4 sections. Choose a different color for each tile.

5. To choose the relationship between the tiles, access the Advanced Options sec-tion of the Property inspector and from the pop-up menu, choose one of the following

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Tile Pattern aligns tile elements hori-zontally and vertically.

Brick Pattern staggers tile elements horizontally; every other row is inset half a tile width. With rectangular tiles, the result looks similar to bricks in a wall.

Floor Pattern staggers tiles horizontally and vertically.

6. To set the grid’s parameters, in the Advanced Options section of the Deco Tool Property inspector, use the hot text to enter values for any of the following:

Horizontal Spacing sets the amount of horizontal space between squares in the grid.

Vertical Spacing sets the amount of vertical space between squares in the grid.

Pattern Scale sets the size of the grid pattern as a whole.

7. Position the pointer over the Stage.

The pointer turns into a paint bucket spilling squares.

8. To fill the Stage with the grid pattern, click a blank area of the Stage.

Flash creates a grid of squares that fills the Stage. If graphic objects already exist on the Stage, Flash places the squares only in the empty space around the existing objects

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To fill a shape with the grid pattern, click within the shape

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Flash places the squares to fill as much of the shape as possible. Flash com-bines the squares of the grid into a single group.

The grid is a group, and each tile within the grid is also a group. Using the selection tool, double-click one tile in the grid to enter group-editing mode. At this level, you can modify the position and size of individual tiles.

Double-click any tile once more to modify its fill and stroke attributes.

The deco tool creates the Grid Fill effect from whatever tiles you select (deselecting a tile does not result in a gap in the grid). For a grid of identical shapes, you need only use one of the four tiles. Select the Tile 1 check-box, for example, and deselect the Tile 2, Tile 3, and Tile 4 checkboxes. Select a new color and/or shape, and the deco tool creates the grid using tiles with that shape and color. For a grid with two shapes, select and define any two tiles (Tile 2 and Tile 4, for example).

You can fill a shape that already has a fill;

simply click within the filled shape. The deco-pattern group winds up above the shape’s fill and stroke in the stacking order.

By default, the deco tool places only whole grid elements. When filling a circle shape with a grid of squares, for example, the deco tool leaves out any squares that would inter-sect the edge of the circle, leaving a gap in the grid. If you wind up with too many gaps, select the grid group, delete it, and try clicking a dif-ferent spot to start the grid. Alternatively, try changing the pattern spacing or size until you get a grid that fills the shape in a pleasing way.

To allow the deco tool to place tiles that overlap the edge of a shape, in the Advanced Options section of the Deco Tool Property inspector, select the Paint Over Edge checkbox.

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By default, the tiles that form the grid pattern appear in order (Tile 1, followed by Tile 2, followed by Tile 3, and so on). When you use tiles of various colors or shapes, you can force the deco tool to break out of this strict rotation and create a crazy-quilt effect.

In the Advanced Options section of the Deco Tool Property inspector, select the Random Order checkbox.

The Pattern Scale property takes values from 50 to 300 percent. Larger percentages increase the size of the squares as well as the amount of space between them; smaller per-centages decrease the size and space.

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