Help with playback buttons please!!!

[hkysk8r86]

Okay, so i have a flash file.
on my stage i have placed a movie clip; contained within the movieclip (named 'animation_mc') i've placed an actions layer that has the clip stopped upon playing the full file.

I've placed some playback buttons (start & stop) that i want to have in there that will control the playback of this MC.

What is the scripting needed that will take this animation_mc from it's stopped position and make it play when i click the play button; and stop it when i hit the stop button. and do i put the actionscript on the button layer itself, or in the main actionscript layer of the MC?

if need be; i can e-mail the full file structure i'm attempting to create.

a little background of the project:

i'm creating a before/after animation that initially is stopped. and the user can click the play button to play it, and stop it as well.

SEND HELP ASAP!

[hkysk8r86]

Any Suggestion/help???? i'm new to the whole button playback stuff. mainly just an animator/designer.

[florianvanthuyn]

So I understand that you want to controle 'a movieclip' within a movieclip 'animation_mc'.
Place this code on the main timeline (and the buttons should be there too!), it should do the trick:

playBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, playMC);
playBtn.buttonMode = true;

stopBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, stopMC);
stopBtnBtn.buttonMode = true;

function playMC(e:MouseEvent):void
{
       animation_mc.aMovieClip.play();
}

function stopMC(e:MouseEvent):void
{
       animation_mc.aMovieClip.stop();
}

Simple as that

If the animation_mc contains the actual movie to be stopped and played (so not nested in another movieclip), remove te ".aMovieClip"'s!

[hkysk8r86]

this is what i get when doing that:

[florianvanthuyn]

You have to select your play button and in the properties window, give it an instance name "playBtn". Do the same for the stop button, only name it "stopBtn".

Then, check where your animation is located. You said it is inside a movieclip, and that one is inside of a movieclip calles "animation_mc".
If so, change the name of the movieclip inside of "animation_mc" to "aMovieClip" (or anything you want, just also change it in the code).

If your animation is just inside of "animation_mc", change all the "animation_mc.aMovieClip" in the code to "animation_mc".

[hkysk8r86]

there's only 1 movieclip; it's called animation_mc; it's placed on the main timeline in its own layer. then on another layer i have my buttons. is this correct?

[hkysk8r86]

this is what i get now; i've made the proper instance names; yet it's still causing errors.

[hkysk8r86]

I just realized that my MC didn't have its instance name either; just disregard the first 2 errors; all that's left are the bottom 2. the 2 1119 errors.

[hkysk8r86]

The animation being controlled is the movie clip; which is named animation_mc. that's the only movie clip being used throughout the whole file. so on the main stage; i have an Actions layer; a movieclip layer; which has the movie clip placed in it. a controls layer that has both the start/stop buttons on it; and that's it. both of the start/stop buttons are both button symbols.

please help.

[florianvanthuyn]

If I'm not mistaken, I seem to read on your second image that the last word s visible are "SimpleButton", but they're cut off.

SimpleButtons don't have a buttonMode property, so change:

stopBtn.buttonMode = true;

To:

stopBtn.useHandCursor = true;

And the same for the startBtn lines.

[hkysk8r86]

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!

that fixed the problem!

u r a genious! far superior than i

[florianvanthuyn]

No problem

I was getting scared that I had made some kind of stupid mistake, but hey, it worked out all right after all

[Creative Action]

Hey thanks for this guys. I'm struggling to add coding to my design abilities and this kind of thing really helps.