Flash: Making a Paperdoll

• To make a Flash paperdoll, we'll be making a collection of buttons. This is a very simple program which will help you get more familiar with ActionScript syntax and with working in Flash.
• First, create a button in Flash that will be the paperdoll. To do this, click on Insert - New Symbol - Button. Design the button, and then click on Scene 1, and drag and drop the paperdoll button into Scene 1 from your Library.
• In Scene 1, add another layer. This layer will be used for all of the paperdoll clothes, or features that will go on top of the paperdoll.
• Now, create another button that will be the first piece of paperdoll clothing using the same steps you used to make the paperdoll button, but this time make sure to drag the button from your library into layer 2 instead of layer 1.
• Now, you should have two buttons on separate layers on the scene. Click on the second button, which is the item of clothing, and bring up the actions window. The completed code here will be:

on (press) {
   startDrag ("");
   }
on (release) {
   stopDrag ();
   }

• In the actions window, click on the "onMouseEvent" button on the left. Then, select the press box, and then click on startDrag from the side left. Then, click on "onMouseEvent" from the left, and select release in the check box. Next, click on the stopDrag from the left. Now, you have all the code needed, so test your movie using Control- Test Movie.
• Now, add the same code to the paperdoll so it can be moved around the screen, and add more buttons with the above code for additional clothing items.

Here's one example of a finalized working Flash Paperdoll, and here's the .fla file.

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