AS2-Help with rotating circular menu

[Alxanimation]

Hi there, with help from a few tutorials, I've made a menu with 5 buttons that rotate around a central Clip. So far so good.

Except I need to add an arrow that will point toward the center whenever a button is activated. Kind of like a tooltip with a compass in it... Much like picture below:



Everything is AS2 with no animation on the timeline. I've been stuck on this for days Firstly, I'm having a hard time to get this arrow mc to rotate on a SMALLER trajectory than my five buttons. Secondly, I cannot get the arrow mc to rotate on itself 360° while it goes around it's trajectory. And finally, I'm not sure if I need 5 arrow mc (one for each button), of if a single mc could be triggered to appear next to whichever button is being called for.

So I would really appreciate any suggestions as to how I might fix my code (AS2) and get the lightning to position itself where it must be. Thanks!

var rotX:Number = 290;
var rotY:Number = 140;
var Centre:Number = Stage.height/2;
var vitesse:Number = 0.1;
var sceneW:Number =Stage.width;
var sceneH:Number = Stage.height;
var nbI:Number=5;
var angle:Number=1;
var i:Number;

var lightning:MovieClip = this.attachMovie("arrow", "arrow", 1000);
arrow._alpha = 0;

var videostopped:Boolean = false;

for(i=0;i<nbI;i++)
{
   //_____________________
   var button:MovieClip = this.attachMovie('Icone'+i,'Ic'+i,i);

   //_____________________
   button.onRelease= onRelease;
   button.onRollOut = onRollOut;
   button.onRollOver = onRollOver;
}

function onRollOver():Void {    
   lightning._alpha = 100;
   videostopped = true;
}

function onRollOut():Void {
   lightning._alpha = 0;
   videostopped = false;
}

onEnterFrame=function(){
    
    if (!videostopped) {
         //_____
     if (angle > (2*Math.PI))
     {
         angle = 0;
     }else{          
        for(i=0; i<nbI; i++){

            //_____________________angle on x axis
            this['Ic'+i]._x=rotX*Math.cos(angle+2*Math.PI*i/nbI)+sceneW/2;
            
            //_____________________angle on y axis
            this['Ic'+i]._y=rotY*Math.sin(angle+2*Math.PI*i/nbI)+sceneH/2;
            
            //_____________________Speed
                angle=angle+(sceneW/180)/sceneH*vitesse;
                    } 
                    }
}
}

[Nialsh]

Yeah, you can get away with just one arrow. Here's some code off the top of my head.

function onRollOver():Void {   
   lightning._alpha = 100;
   videostopped = true;

   var theta:Number = Math.atan2(this._x-sceneH/2, this._y-sceneW/2);
   lightning._x = rotX/2 * Math.cos(theta);
   lightning._y = rotY/2 * Math.sin(theta);

   // maybe add or subtract 90 degrees to make it look right
   lightning._rotation = theta*180/Math.PI;
}

I use arctangent to get the angle between the button and the center of the screen.

[Alxanimation]

thanks, I'll try that later today and let you know how it goes!

[Alxanimation]

Somehow the lightning still appears in the top left corner of my scene. I can't say that I understand what Math.atan2 does very well, but at the moment, it doesn't seem to affect my movie clip. I"ll try to change things a bit.

Here's a link to the fla in case one of you can spot any mistakes.
http://idisk.mac.com/animationap//Pu...nce_06.fla.zip

Thanks!

[Nialsh]

Here you go. I fixed that other code but decided it was the wrong approach, so here's another take.

function onRollOver():Void {
	lightning._alpha = 100;	
	videostopped = true;
	var xOffset = this._x - sceneW/2;
	var yOffset = this._y - sceneH/2;
	var q:Number = .3;
	lightning._x = q*xOffset + sceneW/2;
	lightning._y = q*yOffset + sceneH/2;
	lightning._rotation = Math.atan2(yOffset, xOffset)*180/Math.PI;
}

The lightning still lands wrong in some places... it wouldn't be a problem if your signs were elliptical. But it will look better if you at least center up the green sign.

-Neal

[Alxanimation]

Wow! Thanks a lot! You just saved my weekend. I was about to post to let you know that I had fixed the position horizontally, but that it didn't work vertically.

But your code works in all direction!