After a few days, I actually got it to work.

• Draw an object
• Change the fill color to a gradient
• Use the gradient transform tool to rotate the gradient and to control how fast the color changes

• Select the Rectangle tool
• Depress the Object Drawing button - circle inside a square near the bottom of the Toolbar. This causes the fill and the bordering outline to be treated as a single object instead of 5 separate objects.
• Optionally, turn off the border by changing the color to the red slash. This can also be done after the object is drawn.
• Draw a rectangle - click on the canvas and drag.
• The object you just drew is "selected" and the next operation will apply to it.
• In the Color window (to the right of the Stage)
  • Select the paint can (Fill color icon)
  • Change the Type to Linear
  • Set Overflow to the first option
  • There is a gradient bar with 2 (or more) sliders under it. Double click the first slider to open the color selector.
  • At this point, you can single click each of the sliders and select colors from the palette above the gradient bar. This palette is not active until after you have double clicked one of the sliders - I assume that this is a program bug. At this point, you can also click and drag on the palette to dynamically change the color.
• On the stage, the rectangle currently shows a horizontal gradient.
• On the Toolbar, click and hold the Free Transform Tool icon (an arrow head and square box icon) until the menu opens - select the Gradient Transform Tool
• Select (click on) the rectangle on the stage (the one showing the gradient)
  • Gradient Transform handles will be displayed
  • The mouse cursor shows a gradient when it is over an object with a gradient fill
• The 3 Linear Gradient handles are
  • A rotation center
  • Rate of change - a square box
  • Rotation handle - a circle on the upper edge of the rectangle
• Using the rotation handle, rotate the gradient from horizontal to vertical
• Finally, select the Free Transform Tool and resize the rectangle

• Normally, they are not "active" until they have been double clicked and opened a color selection window. I assume that this is a design problem since it is not logical (to me).
• Once they are "active", when you click and hold the mouse button down, the color window will open when you release the button ... just like double clicking.
• Sometimes, nonfunctional gradient manipulation handles are displayed on the rectangle - this appears to be a program bug. Clicking on them does nothing.

• The Gradient Transform Tool is hidden under the Free Transform Tool (on the Toolbar).
• In the Color window, extra sliders are removed by dragging them off the bottom of the gradient bar. This does not always work. Keep trying ... double clicking first sometimes helps.
• When changing the Type, be sure Fill color (the paint can icon) is selected ... not Stroke color (the pen). Apparently, gradients can be applied to both ... I had assumed that it would apply to ONLY the fill. That actually took quite a while to figure out.
• You have to double click the sliders to activate them ... after that, the operation is fairly logical.
• After resizing a rectangle with a vertical gradient, the gradient handles will be way off the stage. I had to change the zoom to 50% to find them.

• When you right click an object with a gradient fill, there would be an option to enter Gradient Transform mode. (There is an option to enter Free Transform mode.)
• When an object with a gradient is selected, the Properties panel should have an option to enter Gradient Transform mode. The rotation would also be settable.
• With vertical gradients, the handles should be closer to the object ... the spacing is ok for horizontal gradients.
• Help on gradients would actually be useful.

With a linear gradient, there are 3 handles

Icon	Mouse cursor	Function
The small circle in the middle of the object	Vertical and horizontal double arrow	Sets the rotation center
The square box Initially, on the right side of the gradient	Horizontal double arrow	Changes how fast the gradient changes - drag the box left and right This handle is associated with 2 lines - the gradient occurs between these lines. Outside these lines, the color does not change. If either line is left inside the object, there is an obvious color change at that point.
The circle near the upper right hand corner of the object	Four arrows in a circle	Controls the angle of the gradient

Note:

Sometimes, while setting the gradient, Flash just crashes and disappears. Of course, I loose all my unsaved work. Actually, this happens fairly often ... be sure to save frequently. According to the help, Press Shift to constrain the direction of a linear gradient fill to multiples of 45°. It does not work. So I tried the other keys - Every time I use Ctrl while setting the gradient, the program crashes. Every time. However, in these cases, there is a dialog box to report the error to Microsoft. In the other cases (when NOT using Ctrl), there is no dialog box and the program simply disappears.

To set the linear gradient direction, select the Paint Bucket Tool and drag it to produce a linear gradient in a given direction. After releasing the mouse button, click inside the object a second time to see the gradient.

In order to produce a vertical, horizontal, or 45 degree angle gradient, hold the Shift key down while dragging the Paint Bucket Tool.

Icon	Mouse cursor	Function
The small circle in the middle of the handles	Vertical and horizontal double arrow	Sets the rotation center
The triangle - initially in the middle of the handles next to the rotation center (circle)	Upside down triangle	Used to move the center of the gradient so that it can be separate from the rotation center. (So far, I have found no reason for this. Perhaps it can be used to set the light direction for several objects at the same time.)
The square box	Horizontal double arrow	Changes the aspect ratio - circle to ellipse
The circle closest to the box	Not sure, too small to see	Controls the gradient's rate of change (diameter of the circle)
The circle farthest from the box	Four arrows in a circle	Controls the angle of the ellipse (no visible effect if the aspect ratio is one - if the gradient is a circle)

Note:

Under the Color window is the Transform window which controls the rotation of the object ... not the gradient. If you make the mistake of clicking the Reset button, the gradient control is resized in such a way that it is basically useless. (It becomes a straight line - the only available handle moves the center of the gradient. None of the other handles are available.) The History list shows this action as Undefined. In the History window, there is a slider - you can slide this to remove the change and make gradient control functional again.

Before drawing the rectangle, I selected the Stroke color (the color selection box under the pencil) and set it to no border - a red slash.

When I drew the rectangle, it was displayed with a black border.

I guess I'm a little dense, but it took more than an hour before I realized that the black border goes away after I draw another object. With the other drawing applications I use, resize handles are automatically displayed on an object as soon as it is drawn. With Flash, the black border is a selection indication without the usual resize handles (8 square box icons) ... instead you have to first select Free Transform Tool and then click on the object to display the handles.

URL: http:// cpcug.org / user / clemenzi / technical / Languages / Flash / Gradients.html