There are a host of tools in a somewhat elaborate and complex layout consisting mainly of pull down menus and a couple of floating palettes. The tools are not particularly intuitive, but the accompanying lessons in the trial version we tested were excellent. The lessons took us step by step through the creation of animations and buttons. They also cover most, if not all of the various controls and tools. In addition to the lessons, Flash 2.0 includes support for Balloon Help as well as a great Help file.
Elements are very easy to place and manipulate in a number of ways.
Image elements and sound files are all stored in reusable libraries. Elements are dragged into a scene or called by commands placed in the animation. Using layers, frames, and key-frames it is easy to edit even a complex scene. Users of other timeline based animation applications will find it easy to grasp Flash. In addition to frame by frame animation, Flash offers Tween animation.