Now I’ve finished my animation I can come back and ask the things I didn’t have time to ask while making it!
I have read the manual completely, so I mostly understand how to operate the software … these questions are more about the proper way to utilise it. I don’t have a background in Flash or animation, so perhaps some of these things are obvious to everyone but me 
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First question; [SOLVED]
Second; why do I get so many “palette recovery” dialogs? Is it because I’m doing something wrong?
Third; can someone please explain the benefit of advanced art mode?
Fourth; you can use the select tool and the middle mouse button to select segments of flattened pencil lines to cut. Is there an alternative to using the middle mouse button? That’s a really inconvenient choice as the middle mouse button is usually used for Expose by Mac users.
Fifth; why does my library list “templates.localized”? I’m sure it used to just say “templates”.
That’s all for now, but no doubt there’ll be more!
Thanks
Lindsay
well the second is easy. You have colours which have the same name but are different colours.
No, that’s definitely not it. I name all of my colours and there are definitely no duplicates.
Question 4. Holding down the command (Apple symbol) key on the Mac will give you the Select tool (alt-V keyboard shortcut), just like holding down the spacebar will give you the Hand tool.
This is nice, because my workflow with a pen tablet means that my left hand remains on the keyboard and controls the tool. Actions usually occur in pairs:
alt-B for Brush Tool, alt-E for Erase
cmd for select, cmd-shift-F for Flatten
cmd-alt for screen rotate, shift-M to restore screen
alt-Z, click and drag for Zoom in, alt key to Zoom out
etc.
Drawing is pretty easy with Animate you get the hang of.
2: Palette Recovery
There are several instances in which you will get a palette recovery. If you import an image and vectorise it with colour vectorisation, then what it does is it creates a colour texture and sticks that image into it. So in this case, you will get a palette recovery window the first time you import an image. This is normal.
Similarly, you may get this kind of a recovery window the first time you open a scene that has imported images or textures in it.
Then the last one is if you’ve somehow deleted the colour that a region was painted with. It will show up as red and may spark a colour recovery.
3: Advanced Art Mode
Are you working with Animate 1 or Animate 2, by the way? With Advanced Art Mode turned on, Animate will give you the option of using multiple layers inside a drawing layer, called the Colour Art and the Line Art. Some studios break up their images into two layers so that they can keep the lines separate from the fills. When you do this, several other options become available that are in relation to line art and colour art - for example, the Create Colour Art From Line Art tool will become available in the select tool properties.
4: Selecting Flattened Pencil Line Segments
This was changed in Animate Pro 2 to be a left click only, in addition to being able to use the middle-click. This was changed due to the fact that it can be harder to use the buttons on the stylus, for example, when you’re using a tablet. This was not changed by the time Animate 2 was released, however the change should be there in future versions of Animate.
There is no way to change this functionality if you have Animate. Your only option is to try to un-map the middle-click from Expose.
5: Templates.localized
This is due to the fact that this is the name of the folder on your file system. All that the library does is it points to a folder on the file system. The reason you might have a .localized file is if you’re working with multiple user accounts, then this folder might have its own version depending on who’s logged into the computer. This is simply a functionality of Mac.
Hope that covers everything!
~Lilly
Toon Boom Support
Thanks for all the answers Lilly, you have indeed covered most of it.
Just one supplemental question about advanced art mode (I’m using Animate v2) … how is it intended to be used? I can draw lines on the line layer, but I expected that when I filled the enclosed areas, those fills would end up on the colour layer, but they end up on the line layer too. I can’t create fills on the colour layer because it can’t see the lines. What am I missing?
Thanks,
Lindsay
Could you answer your now deleted question 1 that you solved? I am always interested to hear workflows on reuse.
The question was, if I’ve defined a multi-frame template (eg, mouth shapes), used it in a project and then realised I need another mouth shape, how I could add another one, as adding to the template won’t affect the copy already used in my project.
What I didn’t realise was that when you bring a template into your project, a symbol for it is created automatically, and thus the answer is to simply edit that symbol, and from that symbol you can update the template for next time if needed.
It’s actually an incredibly elegant solution, as it means a template can contain the lowest common denominator and you can add to it as needed on a per-project basis.
~ Lindsay
The workflow for working with line art and colour art is first you do your lines on the line art layer. Then you select those lines with your select tool, then in the tool properties panel you will find the button for “Convert from Line Art to Colour Art”. This will now put strokes on your colour art layer. Switch to the colour art, and in the drawing view, with “View Strokes” turned on, you will be able to see the blue strokes that were extracted from your line art. You can now fill in on the colour art layer.
~Lilly
Toon Boom Support
Thankyou Lilly, that makes perfect sense! I knew about the “convert” option, I just didn’t understand its purpose.
Animate is a great product, and it’s so nice to have great support backing it up 
~ Lindsay
I have the same questions about Advanced Art Mode.
I know how to use it, see what I’m doing etc… but it seems like a kluge because it’s much easier to fill shapes without Advanced Art Mode.
If those color zones are SMART color zones and can automatically follow my closed shapes then I can possibly see it saving time. If it’s just for file management it’s not for me because I’m not doing any huge projects with it… yet.
TBA v3 since Jan 2014