Scrolling Dynamic Text, like a ticker tape.

Can anyone help me with this please?

I am looking to make a banner that includes an auto scolling line of text (from left to right). (an java example can be seen at the top of the page, here: http://www.veritas-it.co.uk)

The text box must link to an external file that it can grab the text from. (This text will be constantly updated)

Sometimes there may be more text than at other times.

Is this possible?

If anyone can help that would be great!

Michael



[Edited by freeeky on 09-19-2002 at 08:40 AM]

If you load the scrolltext using loadvars or whatever, you can then display it in a standard dynamic textfield.

Then as often as you wish (depending on the speed of scroll you are looking for):

scrolltext = scrolltext.substring(1,text.length)+scrolltext.sub string(0,1);

hmmm...have you got a fla that could show me this?

id really appreciate it if u could help me mate.

Thanks

Well Mush, I'd help yer mate if I had an address, but it is so easy it hardly seems worth the bother.

0. Create a blank movie-clip and press F5 on the timeline twice to give you three frames.
1. Put a textfield on the stage. Set it to "Dynamic" and set the variable to "scrolltext".
2. Create a new layer and in frame one of the new layer put the code:
scrolltext = "This is so piddly easy I am almost embarassed.";
3. Click on the timeline for the new layer at frame 3 and press F6 to give yourself a new keyframe.
4. In the new keyframe put the code:
scrolltext = scrolltext.substring(1, text.length)+scrolltext.substring(0, 1);
gotoAndPlay(2);

Drag the movie-clip onto the stage and see what happens when you test the movie.

All you need to do then is read-up on "loadVars" or similar and you are laughing like a laughing-boy who has been at the laughing gas too long.

excellent, thanks a lot mate. But how do i grab the text from and external .txt file?

Thanks for your help its really appreciated.

Michael

Press F1 and look up "loadVars()" in the help menu.

I have a major problem here.

The code works when i produce the documents with the above code, but as soon as i save the fla and re export the file, it doesnt work anymore!!!

Is this a bug in flashMX?

Thanks

ive sorted the saving problem, god knows what was going on!


still cant work out this load var business to get an external text field into the scroll. :(

Put the following code in the first frame, make sure the scrollmovie has the instance name "scrollmovie". Then save a textfile called "textfile.txt" containing the text "scrolltext=Whoopidoo the bugger works!" in the same location as your movie.

downloadstuff = new LoadVars();
downloadstuff.load("textfile.txt");
downloadstuff.onLoad = function(success) {
if (success) {
_root.scrollmovie.scrolltext = downloadstuff.scrolltext;
} else {
_root.scrollmovie.scrolltext = "The cursed download failed, is the file in the right place?";
}
};
[Edited by AlsoGaiusCoffey on 09-20-2002 at 08:23 AM]

As an alternative, simply replace the contents of the first frame of your scroll MC with the following:

scrolltext = " ";
downloadstuff = new LoadVars();
downloadstuff.load("scrolltext.txt");
downloadstuff.onLoad = function(success) {
if (success) {
scrolltext = downloadstuff.scrolltext;
}
};

The difference being that this way, the MC is entirely self-contained so you can drag it around to wherever you want and it'll work.

Can't seem to get this working, I created the blank MC and put the code on the first frame in the MC, I tried the other way; putting the code on the first frame outside the MC.

Any ideas ??

see if my :: XML-Driven Horizontal Ticker :: in my library helps