animated buttons question

[theprescription]

hi,
i just joined this forum and have been enlighted by many of the threads i have been reading.

unfortunatly i can't seem to find exactly what i am trying to do here explained in a way i can understand.

what i have is a button, i made a movie clip instance inside of the down part of the button. what i want to have happen is when the button is pushed down the movie clip plays. i have gotten it to work but not to play by itself. to be slightly clearer, what i would like is a button that when it is pushed it plays the movie that i have inside of the down psrt of the button "it spinning around" i don't want it to have to be dependent on being 'down' to work. so if i could figure out how to program it to work on the mouse event of pushing the button down would be great.

i am using flash mx, and any help would be more that appreciated!!

you can view my "so far" at http://www.doublejdesign.com, this is my first attempts at flash.

[wannabe_who]

put the animated movieclip in the up fram eof the button

the first two frames of the movieclip are keyframes

firstframe no actions

second frame is

if (_root.wannabe!="god") {  
gotoAndPlay(1);
}

third frame onwards is the movie (to loop better make the last frame

gotoAndPlay(3);

the buttons actions are

on (release) {
	_root.wannabe="god";
}

[theprescription]

this is great, but what should the "wananbe" and god be replaced by in the code. i am really new at this and i really dont know. is "wannabe" your assumed name for a frame label or what. would this code work if i just dropped it in as is?

if you could be just a little bit more explicit it would be great.

sorry but i am reeeeaaaaalllyy new at this.

[wannabe_who]

you can replace it with anything ya want ^_^

it will work as it is, for on ebutton

change wannabe to different variables on different buttons...

EG:

home button
:
on (release) {
_root.playhome="yes";
}

and the movieclip would be
if (_root.playhome!="yes") {
gotoAndPlay(1);
}


and then on say "About button"

about button
:
on (release) {
_root.playabout="yes";
}

and the movieclip would be
if (_root.playabout!="yes") {
gotoAndPlay(1);
}




----


understand?

[theprescription]

oh also flash will not allow me to put any actions on a button up, over, down or hit. is that wrong ?

[wannabe_who]

well of course.

buttons use actionscript on the outside

like

on (release) {
do your thing
}

--

on (press) {
do your thing
}

--

on (rollover) {
do your thing
}

--

actions on the frames of a button would mess it up

[theprescription]

now i am totally confused. where exactly do i put them then?

[wannabe_who]

on the outside, wherever you out the button

click the button once, not twice

[green_eye]

the link is broken
do you want a btn to controll a movie clip
Did you create a btn and put a movie clip in the over state and you want to hit the btn only once and it loops

make your btn into a movie clip and then when over play animation when click do something else onRollOut do something else
It is more than a btn because a btn cannot have rollOver/rollOut animations

[theprescription]

alright, to re-re-explain. hopefully clearer this time (do my explanations show how little i know? - HAHA!)

i have designed a button that has an animation under the down section. the way that i did this was to turn the part i wanted to animate into a movie clip and then animate it.

i would like the button to have this movie clip auto play after it is clicked.

as it stands right now i have it working just fine AS LONG AS I HOLD THE MOUSE DOWN, what i would like to have happen is after one click it runs the animation.

would _wannabees_ above advice be the way to do this? would any one mind giving me a slightly dumbed down tutorial?

i understand how to add action script to the timeline but i am not sure where to put it. if you are adding 'script to a button how does this get performed as you can't add it to the (up,over,down or hit) frames.

also last question (for now at least hahaha) where should i put the movie instance and where should i put the code to trigger it.

thanks for any and all help!! and thanks for the above information as well. i just wish i understood it.

thanks!!

[wannabe_who]

here i made a thing for you, very simple stuff

[theprescription]

like sunshine on a mountain i think it just dawned on me what you have been saying wannabee, it will have to wait until i get home to check, as i am at work, but please oh please let my ignorance have passed. this has been driving me batso for a week.

would it also be possible for me to not make a button instance but put all of this information into the main movie. i.e. on roll over do 'x' on press do 'y'? and if so.... why the hell didn't i think of that a week ago??? (yes, that was retorical)

[wannabe_who]

Originally posted by theprescription
...would it also be possible for me to not make a button instance but put all of this information into the main movie. i.e. on roll over do 'x' on press do 'y'?

... thats what a button is for ...