If you use Flash alot (or plan to), you need to know about custom swatches. Though to be fair, if you use Flash alot, you probably already know about them. But anyway, custom swatches are a great time saving feature. If you have created a really good linear gradient with the Color Mixer window, you can save the swatch and use it again on a different part of your project, instead of having to try to create the exact mix again. Here you will learn how to create and save a swatch, and how to delete one that you no longer need, so let's get started.


Creating A Custom Swatch

Open your Color Mixer window by navigating to Window > Color Mixer, or by pressing the hotkey Shift + F9. It should appear on the right hand side, or in the middle of the screen, in which case, drag it over and dock it on the right.The default mix will be a solid black color.





Now, we're going to create a linear gradient. To do this, select Linear from the Type drop down list. The swatch then defaults to a basic black to white gradient. The bar along the bottom has two small boxes at either end. We need to add some more of these boxes to add some more colors. If you hover your mouse cursor over the strip, you will see a small "+" sign appear on it. Click in the middle, and a third box will be added. At this stage your Color Mixer should look like this.





Double click your middle box, and select red (#FF0000) from the color menu. Now we have a mix that we can save as a custom swatch. To do this, locate the drop down options button, that is at the top right of the Color menu, and is signified by three tiny black squares and some lines, with an arrow pointing down.





Click it, and select the "Add Swatch" option from the drop down menu.





Our black, red and white color mix has now been added to the default color swatch list. On the Tools menu, select the "Fill Color" paint bucket, and open the color menu. You will see our new swatch at the bottom with the other custom colors.





You can now use that swatch for your entire project. The swatch will stay there even if you create a different mix in your Color Mixer. You can add a large amount of custom swatches, so don't be afraid to. You can even save your custom swatch for use on a different project altogether (Flash removes the swatches if you close the program). To do this, select your swatch from the Color Swatches window (Ctrl + F9). Next, select your swatch, click the drop down options menu again. From the options, select "Save Colors...". Save your swatches to your specified directory.





The "Save as Default" option works in a similar way, but adds your custom swatches to the default colors so you don't need to load your them each time.


Deleting A Custom Swatch

So aside from simply closing Flash, there's a much easier way to delete a custom swatch. From the Color Swatches menu again, select your swatch at the bottom, and open the options. This time, choose "Delete Swatch" from the list, and the swatch will be removed completely.

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