How to Select MC when it's under other MCs?

[Ray Beez]

Hi. First, I'd like to say that I TRIED searching for the answer to this question first, but this board's search function times out 4 out of 5 times when I try searching for anything with more than one keyword.

So... I'm not a newbe and I bet the answer here is "there is no solution", but I'll ask anyway, since it would be a big headache reliever:

If you have a pile of clips all overlapping on top of each other on the same layer, and I want to SELECT one of them, how do I do it?

- I can't just click it with my mouse, cuz there's other clips on top.
- I can just move the clips out of the way, cuz they have all been painstakingly positioned.

Seems to me a useful button in Flash would be one similar to the "edit movieclips" button, but which just selects a clip currently in the scene/timeline.

So..... is there a solution?

RB

[Steve_w_V]

Like you said, there are other movieclips overlapping the one on the bottom, but I would assume that it still responds to rollOver functions. Try:

code:

---

on(rollOver){

this.swapDepths(999);

}

---

[Ray Beez]

My question is not actionscript related. It's editing related. I need to select it so that indeed i can add some actionscript on it! Obviously I can't do this through the library.

[lentil dal]

you can use 'arrange' in the transform menu

or you can put your mcs on different layers and lock the top layer, then select the mc on the bottom layer.

[Ray Beez]

Picture this:
There is ONE layer. That layer has a dozen clips all overlapped, such that I CANNOT click on the clip I want. In order to get at the clip I want I would have to move the other overlapping clips out of the way. I can't do this because everything has been carefully laid out, and even the "arrangement" matters.

I'm trying to find out if there's a menu selection or something that I just don't know about that will let me select the clip I want (say, from a list) but selecting it in the stage (not in the library).

???

[lentil dal]

you're the one that isn't paying attention, and you need to learn some manners.

laying lots of mcs on top of each other on one layer is very bad file management.

As I said before move them on to seperate layers and you won't have this problem any more.

If you really don't want to do this you can select the top movie then got to modify>arrange to move it to a different level, do this until you get to the clip you need. This is laborious but if you set your files up badly this is what you get.

[Ray Beez]

Yeah and on the other hand if I had 60 layers people would be telling me THAT's bad for performance!

[lentil dal]

You said it was a dozen mcs. If having lots of layers is a problem for you then you should create or duplicate mcs with actionscript instead.

you can also assign actions to mcs via actionscript in which case you don't need to physically select them at all.

[Ray Beez]

Assinging AC to MCs via AC is worth looking into. Thanks.

[FlashArrow]

I guess you can also click on the top most MC, then click Modify -> Arrange and then click "send to back". This will put clicked MC behind all others. This was you can continue to do this until you reach the MC you want, put the actionscript in it, and repeat the process until you've put all actionscript in all MC's and get them in order again.

[Defyeler]

Go into your library, your MC should be there if it was not dynamically created by script, you obviously created it manually. Select it there, edit it from there.

If they are all empty MC's then just go into your library, edit the one you want to select, put an arbitrary shape into it.

Now you will see that MC on the stage, move it where you want it. Edit it again and delete the shape you put into it.

Sometimes frustration clouds judgement.. or judgement creates frustration.. w/e

[Ray Beez]

You cannot put Actionscript "on" a MC through the library!

Here's my last question: would you guys not agree that a simple button in Flash's UI to select MCs from the stage would be useful?

[lentil dal]

no - you dont need it - you can access every mc through the movie explorer.

[Defyeler]

No, you cannot put actionscript on the MC from the library, what i was suggesting was that you use my method to access the MC so you can differentiate that MC from the others, then you can select it on the stage, then u can put in the AC.

[lentil dal]

did you read what i said in my last post?

you dont need to acces the mc in this way.

go to the 'windows' menu and choose 'movie explorer' or press alt+f3 on a mac.

from this window you can select any mc (or anything else for that matter) within your flash movie and do whatever you want with it.

do a test: create a button and then select it through the movie explorer, then type a function into the actionscript window and test your movie - the button will perform the function.

[Ray Beez]

LENTIL!!! Awesome! Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for! Too bad you weren't around to reply earlier in this thread. ;-)