MC in a button's over state... how to keep it on? 1

xombii · Oct 8, 2001

I have a button with a short mc as its "over" state.
The mc plays fine as long as the mouse is held over the button, but I'd like it to play through and stop once moused over, even if the mouse is then moved off of the button. Does that make sense?

I'm pretty good with Flash, but sometimes the obvious escapes me... its that darn middle ground between newbie and master that seems to stretch on and on and on...

oldnewbie · Oct 8, 2001

You will not be able to have that work, if you add the mc while editing the over state of your button. Since there's no "off" state, if you will, obviously as soon as you roll off the button, the mc on the over state will dissapear. Those (button & mc) will have to be both dragged on stage from the library, the mc given an instance name, and then controlled from the button. To do that, simply right-click your button, chose Actions in the menu, and in the Object Actions box that'll come up, just add an action like this:

on(rollover){
_root.yourmcthisinstance'sname.play();
}

This will have the mc play on condition that you had a stop action on it's first frame (preferably on a blank keyframe - so that the mc is invisible when your movie loads!), and it should stop at the end if you have added a stop action on it's last frame. If you didn't, it will loop back and start over, stopping on the first frame since there's a stop action.

Much more control is possible, but get this working before you move on.

Regards,

ldnewbie

xombii · Oct 8, 2001

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I'm not to hot with the action scripting, but that one looks easy enough.

I can see why your name tops the experts list!

xombii · Oct 8, 2001

Oldnewbie

Well, I got that to work just like I was thinking it would, but now I've encountered another problem...

Here's where I'm trying to go with my end result.

Imagine a dot that appears to rise up (zoom or expand) when you mouse over it, then falls with a little "bounce" back to its regular state. That's the part I got to work doing what you suggested. Now, I want a line of dots that do that. Dragging multiple instances of the "bouncing dot" mc onto the stage didn't do it. Any one of them I touched only made the original react.

Any further ideas on how I can accomplish this?

oldnewbie · Oct 8, 2001

If you want to use the exact same mc for several buttons, you should drag that mc from the library, as you did, but assign it a different instance's name and refer to that specific name in the actionscript of the corresponding button.
If, for some reason, you want to change the appearance of one movie clip, you should make a copy of your original mc(right-click on it in the library, and hit Duplicate), edit that one, and then drag this new one in place. If you edit the original movie clip, and for instance change the color of the dot, then all instances of this original mc (even if they have different names) will show the change.

Once you get this working, I can show you how to use reverse play, so that on a quick rollout, the dot reverses back to it's beginning position from the point it was at, rather than to have to complete the animation cycle!
If this makes any sense to you!

Regards,

ldnewbie

xombii · Oct 8, 2001

Cool... okay, I won't have time to try this today, but its first on my list tomorrow. This isn't for anything in particular, I just have interesting ideas sometimes but lack the know-how to make the tangible.

My "what I want to do" is far exceeding my "what I know how to do" in Flash and unfortunately, I haven't seen many tutorials that cover anything beyond how to do the basics. Flashkit has some cool stuff, but my ideas seem to be a bit off the norm...

Thanks for your help!

coldfused · Oct 8, 2001

If, for some reason, you want to change the appearance of one movie clip, you should make a copy of your original mc(right-click on it in the library, and hit Duplicate), edit that one, and then drag this new one in place. If you edit the original movie clip, and for instance change the color of the dot, then all instances of this original mc (even if they have different names) will show the change.

this is all new to me old..i have never been able to change a duplicate of a movie clip and have it not effect the original..

explain this to me?