Re: FLASH: Basic Logic: Stop actions and Tell Target Question

[John Croteau]

Hi Jeff,


> So far, I have been mainly linear in my thinking and have not used the

> load movie features of Flash. I am following a long the tutorial for

> creating a popup menu, and the logic of part of the instructions escapes

> me.

This method refers to using Movie Clips not Load Movie. both can do the

same things generally but Load movies are separate .SWF movies.


> First of all, it says that in creating a button, in frame 1, it says to

> define it with the action GoTo frame 1.

> However it doesn't say anywhere whether that should be Goto and stop or

> Go to an play.

> Aside from that, If the action is Go to Frame 1 and you are in the first

> frame, how will the button action allow you to advance to frame 2 where

> you have the multiple buttons' actions?

I don't know what you are refering to because I don't know what tutorial

on popup menus you refer to. Hopefully my later comments about movie

clips will help.


> [this is from your tutorial John:

> http://www.FlashBible.com/members/MovieClips/AsScenes.htm

> On a more general question: when loading movie clips in the same scene

> through button actions, you create a Tell Target  rather than a Goto

> frame or label - why?

>  Couldn't you

> just jump to the frame, start to play, and include a GoTo Frame 1 action

> at the end of frames for that MC?

No, You use Tell Target to communicate between timelines. The / refers

to the root or main timeline so the Go to Next Frame action is directed

to the main timeline and does not move the movie clip's own timeline.


      Begin Tell Target   Target: /

          Go to Next Frame

      End Tell Target


> Now in there, it doesn't really sense to me, why you include a stop

> action command at the End of each MC. I thought movie clips will only

> play IF you have allotted enough frames on the timeline for the movie

> clip to finish its cycle.

Incorrect. Movie Clips have independent timelines and will loop

repeatedly even if the main timeline is stopped unless you tell it to

stop or kill it. A multiframe graphic (animated graphic) does depend on

the timeline it is placed on but movie clips are independent and can be

controlled esxternally with Tell Target.

Take a look at my Basic Tell Target and you will see 1 frame on the main

timeline  -->

http://www.FlashCentral.com/Tutorials/TellTarget.htm


> At the end of the movie clip you include an

> action to go back to the Frame 1  [in my example] of the timeline where

> the menu is, so that the user can choose a different MC? 

This is from the other tutorial, but all that means is you want to go

back to the place where your menus exist. In other systems you might

have the menus there all the time, this does not appear to be the case

in this tutorial.


> understand the term Canvas Guide Layer...

A Guide Layer is an option of a Layer where anything on the layer is

seen only while you are working in the authoring mode (to help arrange

things) but these objects are not exported to the .SWF file. It can be

(guide) lines, pictures or text ... whatever you need.


-----------                               -----------------------

John Croteau

croteauerols [dot] com (mailto:croteauerols [dot] com)

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