The Symbol-to-Frames Flash extension, which is the reverse of the Frames-to-Symbol tool I released the day before, is now ready for downloading. As you probably know, I’m doing all this stuff to help Flash designers and developers to save time. Because of that, I am doing a simple demo video up so you can see the Symbol-to-Frames Flash extension before you download it:

Granted, it’s not a complicated concept. The Symbol-to-Frames Flash extension allows you to select a movie-clip instance on your current timeline, and automatically extract all of the contents from that movie-clip instance and place them on the current timeline to exactly match the position of the original instance. It is the reverse of my other tool, the Frames-to-Symbol extension.

I built it because I think of this as just one more unnecessary repetative task than can be solved by using Flash JSFL tools. Without it you have to take the following steps:

1. Enter the symbol
2. Select all frames and layers
3. Copy the frames and layers
4. Return to original timeline
5. Add a new layer and keyframe
6. Paste the frames in place
7. Properly position the contents of the keyframes
8. Delete the original symbol instance

While this doesn’t seem like too much, I’m a freak when it comes to small details. Besides, this only works smoothly (doing it by hand) if the registration point of your symbol works properly in conjunction with the registration point of the timeline you are pasting it’s layers into. Most of the time you have to position the contents of multiple keyframes, which is still tedious and time consuming even with onion-skin selection features turned on.

So enough of that nonsense. Now you can use this Flash tool to do it instantly. Just go to my free flash tools download page and you can download this little software gem. It’s free and the extension works with Flash MX 2004, Flash 8, and Flash CS3.