About controlling external movies

[Ofir R Rios]

I'm calling an external movie, just like this:

code:

---

var externalMovie:MovieClip;

var myLoader:Loader = new Loader();



myLoader.load(new URLRequest("external.swf"));

myLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(flash.  events.Event.COMPLETE, finishedLoading);



function finishedLoading (e:Event):void{

    externalMovie = MovieClip(myLoader.content);

    stage.addChild(myLoader);

}

---

the external movie loads fine, but when I try to control it from outside its opening function, like:

code:

---

function playIt()

{

    externalMovie.play(); 

}



playIt();

---

I get an ugly error (1009).

I know it is because the externalMovie variable is available only under the finishedLoading function scope. But what if I want to control my external movie from anywhere else in my movie? How can I "globalize" my variable to be available by any other function?

PLEASE HELP!!!

[cancerinform]

In my Flashscript class package there is a class CustomDispatcher, which is basically an Eventdispatcher class. Once the movie is loaded, an event is dispatched.

package biz.Flashscript.events
{
    //
    // Eventdispatcher
    //
    import flash.events.EventDispatcher;
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.events.TimerEvent;
    import flash.utils.Timer;
    public class CustomDispatcher extends EventDispatcher
    {
        public static  var ACTION:String = "action";
        public function CustomDispatcher()
        {
        }
        public function doAction (delay:Number,repeat:Number):void
        {
            var myTimer:Timer = new Timer (delay,repeat);
            myTimer.addEventListener (TimerEvent.TIMER, propAction);
            myTimer.start ();
            function propAction (e:TimerEvent):void
            {
                dispatchEvent (new Event(CustomDispatcher.ACTION));
            }
        }
    }
} 

An example of how it is implemented is shown here.

http://flashscript.biz/flashas3/biz/index.html

Click on CustomDispatcher.