Flash help

[sirbleedsalot]

I am working on making a flash presentation and am having some troubles.
*I need to know how to create two buttons, one at the beginning of the time line to start the movie when clicked, and one at the end of the time line to replay the movie. I have multiple scenes and have tried to use actions to do this but it always says that it must be a button to apply actions to it even if it is.

* I want a mask to go over the stage so that objects outside the stage would not be visible if a user hit the maximize button in the upper left hand corner of the window. The problem is when I create the mask some of my text does not show up at all.

*I am using the alpha command to make objects fade in and out, however most of the time I can't get the color selection box to appear in the properties window to change the alpha and it is annoying. So if anyone has some tips on how to make that appear, or how to fade objects easier that would be helpful as well.