Speed up your Flash Coding
Most computer literate people understand the value of keyboard shortcuts to improve efficiency and time. Who wants to go to File - >Edit -> Undo when they can just press Ctrl+Z. Well in Flash (and I believe Flex for that matter) you can increase your efficiency even more by using the 'escape shortcuts keys' (different from the keyboard shortcuts that initiate certain menu commands). Most of us have seen this in the actions panel next to elements inside the actions panel. (as seen highlighted in yellow below)
If you don't see these in your actions panel, you can turn this feature on by going to the View Options pop-up menu, and enable or disable View Escape Shortcut Keys. (as seen highlighted in yellow below)
To use these shortcuts while coding in the Actions panel, you can press 'Esc' and combination of two keys in sequence (not all at the same time) to insert ActionScript code blocks into the ActionScript window.
For example, if you are working in the actions panel and type Esc+f+n, the following code is placed in your script, with the cursor placed immediately following 'function' to allow you to give your function a name:
function () {
}
This can be a huge time saver if you get in the habit of using these shortcuts. One of the problems however is remembering them all, as I have not found them documented anywhere. So I have provided a complete (as far as I know) list below of all the current escape shortcut keys (I have not included shortcuts for deprecated code). You can also grab a 'PDF version' or 'FlashPaper version' as well. The downloadable/printable versions include descriptions as well (not enough real estate here 
) Feel free to let me know if I have missed any and I will add them in.
Enjoy!
| Element | Quickkey |
| gotoAndPlay | Esc - g - p |
| gotoAndStop | Esc - g - s |
| nextFrame | Esc - n - f |
| prevFrame | Esc - p - f |
| nextScene | Esc - n - s |
| prevScene | Esc - p - s |
| play | Esc - p - l |
| stop | Esc - s - t |
| stopAllSounds | Esc - s - s |
| getURL | Esc - g - u |
| loadMovie | Esc - l - m |
| loadMovieNum | Esc - l - n |
| loadVariables | Esc - l - v |
| loadVariablesNum | Esc - v - n |
| unloadMovie | Esc - u - m |
| unloadMovieNum | Esc - u - n |
| fscommand | Esc - f - s |
| onClipEvent | Esc - o - c |
| on | Esc - o - n |
| setProperty | Esc - s - p |
| duplicateMovieClip | Esc - d - m |
| removeMovieClip | Esc - r - m |
| startDrag | Esc - d - r |
| stopDrag | Esc - s - d |
| Esc - p - r | |
| printAsBitmap | Esc - p - b |
| printNum | Esc - p - n |
| printAsBitmapNum | Esc - b - n |
| trace | Esc - t - r |
| set variable | Esc - s - v |
| with | Esc - w - t |
| delete | Esc - d - e |
| var | Esc - v - r |
| if | Esc - i - f |
| else | Esc - e - l |
| else if | Esc - e - i |
| while | Esc - w - h |
| do while | Esc - d - o |
| for | Esc - f - r |
| for..in | Esc - f - i |
| break | Esc - b - r |
| continue | Esc - c - o |
| class | Esc - c - l |
| interface | Esc - i - t |
| import | Esc - i - p |
| function | Esc - f - n |
| return | Esc - r - t |
| switch | Esc - s - w |
| case | Esc - c - e |
| default | Esc - d - t |
| try | Esc - t - y |
| catch | Esc - c - h |
| finally | Esc - f - y |
| throw | Esc - t - h |
| #initclip | Esc - i - c |
| #endinitclip | Esc - e - c |
| #include | Esc - i - n |
/** UPDATE **/
See the post titled "Adding Custom Actions and Escape Keys" for more information on this topic.
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January 25th, 2006 at 5:49 am
Great!!! Thank you. I was looking for this…
And thanks for the pdf and the swf printable versions.
April 29th, 2006 at 8:07 am
great work
January 31st, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Whoa. How have I managed to miss Esc shortcuts all this time..? Great find and thanks for the PDF.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Out of curiosity, do you know if there is a way to edit these Esc commands so that you could customize the key combo that triggers each insert of code? Like, for instance, if I wanted Esc+1 to throw a stop(); down.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:02 am
And I see the next part, now… Nice. =P
April 4th, 2007 at 11:01 am
[...] As an extension to my previous post regarding Escape Shortcut Keys in Flash, below is a way to add/modify your own, along with a nice set graciously provided by atn at SoleilNoir There’s also a trick to improve the way you use these “quickeys” by editing the ActionsPanel.xml file and personalizing it. • Find it at C: Program Files\Macromedia\Flash {version} \{LANGUAGE}\First Run\ActionsPanel [...]
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:53 pm
[...] gotten a few emails from people asking about getting the Escape Shortcuts to work in CS3, and specifically if they still work in AS3. The answer is absolutely, although they [...]
July 17th, 2007 at 1:57 am
This is much useful information. Thank you a lot! You are right, it’s funny to find special lines of command instead of pushing few buttons. Silly, isn’t it? Good for you!