How do you control more than one movie!!!!

[Ozi]

Hi everyone...I am trying to teach myself the ins and outs of animaton movies etc with Flash 5 (I've been using it for about a week now) so i can liven up my home page, and I'm stuck, I have created a corner menu with 8 buttons, 3 of which have hidden menu's,that when the button is clicked the movie is activated, but, the problem i have is that there are 3 movies in the timeline, what action can I use on each button so that it only playes the movie that corresponds to the button, any help would be gratefully appreciated, thanks in advance.
Michael

[eulci]

each hidden menu will be it's own film, and then set on the stage. You have to then give each one it's own instance name (cntrl+I) and then in the button's ActionScript:

on (release) {
tellTarget ("film1") {
gotoAndPlay (2);
}
}

leave the first frame in 'film1'empty if you don't want to see it sitting in your site until it's clicked.
and in 'film1' you'll need a stop in the last frame so that it won't keep repeating.

[Ozi]

Eulci.....thanks for your help, but, after I added the actions that you recommended and then doen a "test movie" when I clicked on the button I tried it on this message popped up in a separate window...Target not found: Target="links1" Base="_level0.instance1".....links1 is what I named the movie in the instance behaviour section....any other help you could give would be appreciated, thanks in advance.Michael

[eulci]

where is your button? on the main stage or in a film? if it's on the main stage and your intance name is on the main stage it should work I think...

[Ozi]

Originally posted by eulci
where is your button? on the main stage or in a film? if it's on the main stage and your intance name is on the main stage it should work I think...

I have all my buttons on one layer, should they all be on separate layers and also I have them all as buttons, should they be movie's, thanks

[Cheeetah]

ok i will just tell you what i did rather than trying to see what is going wrong....I have just spent the last 20 hours doing what your trying to do! *LOL*

so you create your symbol MC (movie clip) and put your hidden menu (links1) into that you then drag that MC onto your main stage and while it is a cross hairs bring up your instance panel and name it... (well i keep the names the same so i dont get confused!) so lets name the instance 'links1' as well.... then you would in your button action for links1 say

on (release) {
tellTarget ("links1") {
gotoAndPlay (2);
}
}

I have all my buttons in the same layer and yes you want buttons not movies for them......well thats how i have done it but i am new at this too! lol

anyway hope i understood what your were asking and hope this helps!

Cheetah

[Ozi]

Thanks Cheetah....maybe I shouldn't have tried something so difficult to do, this is my attempt at anything in flash, you and Eulci are probably on the right track and its probably something minor that I have done/put in the wrong place or something silly like that,I'll just have to keep trying different things till I get it right (with others help, no doubt) and keep pulling out my hair with frustration,lol, I'll have to change my name to badly soon