Target paths and loadMovie

[Lexthayn]

i was wondering if there is a way to reference the main timeline of a swf that is loaded into another swf with loadMovie--but keep the actionscript functionality of the loaded swf when editing individually.

I know, confusing..but i will try to make it as clear as possible.

I will refer to the main swf that is loading the other swf as main.swf and the swf being loaded as loaded.swf

when i refer to the main timeline in loaded.swf i use _root but the problem is when i load loadedswf into main.swf (using loadMovie) Flash thinks (by using _root in loaded.swf to reference its main timeline) i mean to reference the main timeline of main.swf--which is not what i want.

so, my question is: is there a way to reference ONLY the main timeline of loaded.swf? (somehow a more specific target path to only loadedswf's main timeline)

(the reason being when i edit loadedswf.fla none of the functionality works if i have to change the target paths to account for the root timeline and the movieclip in main.swf)

if you need me to clarify anything feel free to ask


Thanks,

Lex

[a_modified_dog]

try using _lockroot = true; on frame#1 in loaded.swf
any code in loaded.swf that uses syntax _root
will now look to loaded.swf main timeline,

hth

[Lexthayn]

wahoo! you just made my hour. thank you. you rock.

[nunomira]

hi,

Using _lockroot is a workaround... not considered exactly a good practice. The same goes for _root.
Don't use _root, use relative paths instead (for your next projects at least )

[Lexthayn]

how would you reference a root timeline relatively?

because _lockroot works great. the only problem is one aspect of the functionality uses _root._xmouse, root._ymouse and that poses a problem when _lockroot is true.

so if there is a way to have a relative target path to the main timeline. that would be swell.

Lex

[nunomira]

how would you reference a root timeline relatively?

That depends on where the code is attached.
But using relative paths means that you don't use _root. It also means that you'll use this and or _parent (or a combination of both / each).

Read understanding target paths for more details.