Button Actionscript

[star1210]

I am new to this so, It may be simple to some but not to me.

I created a button it's instance name is "button1"

This is the action script
button1.onPress = function() {
trace("test");
}

This is the error I get
Scene=Scene 1, Layer=Layer 1, Frame=1: Line 1: Statement must appear within on handler
button1.onPress = function() {

What I tought would happen is that when I right click on the button, I would get a message "test"

what am I doing wrong?

[BlackCow237]

I just replicated what you told me and it worked fine for me. I get the out put, test. Make shure you are putting the action in frame one and not on the button. I think thats your problem. I dunno. Try redoing it, i did it in 2 seconds.

[wbwd]

Yeps, works fine for me too... As BlackCow237 said, make sure that the actions is on the frame... Or maybe try to put the action on the same layer frame on which your button is ( sometimes that can occure too, but don't think that thats the prob here )...

[star1210]

Thanks guys that worked when I put the code in
"Actions for Frame 1 of layer Name Layer 1" rather than "actions for button1"

I don't understand why, shouldn't the action be for the button and not the frame ?

What is the difference and when should you use

on (press) {
trace("Test");
}

instead of

button1.onPress = function() {
trace("test");
}

Ultimately I want to do this

on (press) {
duplicateMovieClip(_root.test1,_root.symbol 2,1);
setProperty (test1, _x, random(275));
setProperty (test1, _y, random(275));
trace ("here I am");
}

when the user presses the button a copy of "symbol 2" is created at a random location.

Can you point me in the right direction.

thanks

[BlackCow237]

I could be wrong but im pritty shure that when you say on (press) it is on the button so you dont have to define its name and when you say button1.onPress it is on the main frame because you have to define the name of the button.