Buttons in down state... little help?

[ScotinOttawa]

I'm a bit over my head with a slightly ambitious project I'm doing for a client who is a musician. The task is to create a fully functioning tape player. The problem I'm having is issues adapting button states, mostly the relation between the play and stop buttons.

I've created all the images for the up and down states, but I'm not able to figure out the actions to actually get the tape player play button to stay down (on press) and play the mp3 songs.

I also have the play button movie clip created with two states (up and down), but the actions I'm using aren't working the way I assumed they would. Am I missing something? It's been a while since I've used Flash for anything beyond roll overs... Below is the action I'm using for the play button:

on (press) {
}
gotoAndStop(2);

I have 3 songs the client has provided and assume having each song on a different scene would be the easiest way to do it with a click of the cassette tape to link to each scene.

I've also created the spinning tape reel with a simple movie clip, but I'm also not sure the best way to speed it up and reverse it for fast forwarding and rewinding.

The examples I've looked at online and on Youtube don't seem to relate, since in most cases the buttons aren't linked to each other and don't allow for a return to normal state for instance if the song is playing the play button would be in the down state, then return to up state when the stop button is pressed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[angelhdz]

var pressed:Boolean;

myButton.onPress=function(){
if (pressed==true){           //if  button already pressed
pressed=false;                //turn it unpressed and stop the music
myMusic.stop();
}
else {                           //if not
pressed=true;                //turn it pressed and play the music
myMusic.start(0, 99)
}

}

[angelhdz]

Don't use Scenes. Is a bad idea. Better use frames. Example: Frame 1 you put a stop(); it stop at frame 1 and don't keep running. Then when pressing the button, go the 2nd frame or whatever frame you want.

[ScotinOttawa]

Thanks for the reply angelhdz, I'm assuming this action is being applied to the first frame of the movie clip. I have named this clip play button. It has two frames, with buttons on each frame (one of the up state and one down).

Also how do I relate those buttons to fast forward and rewind while still allowing the play button to return to inactive state?

[angelhdz]

Also, if you want to unpress the "play" button when pressing the "stop" button you can do this

var pressed:Boolean;

playButton.onPress=function(){
         if(this.pressed==true){
        //do nothing
}  
else {              
playButton.pressed=true;                                       
myMusic.start(0, 99)
}
};

stopButton.onPress=function(){
      
playButton.pressed=false;                                        
myMusic.stop()

}

Explanation:

On press the play button, if it is pressed , do nothing, because is already pressed, pressing it again won't do nothing. If is not pressed, it means you pressed the stop button, so, turn it pressed and play the music.

On press the stop button, turn the play button unpressed, so you can play it again, and stop the music.

[angelhdz]

Here is the demo, to see if is what you need.
You can't use regular buttons for this. You have to convert them to movieclip, assign instance name to them playButton, stopButtonand put Label names to the frames according to the button actions (UP, DOWN) And for the music, you have to assign an Identifier name in the linkage properties (Identifier in Flash CS6)
For mine i used music and then i created the sound with

myMusic=new Sound(); myMusic.attachSound("music");

And in the first frame:

var pressed:Boolean;

myMusic=new Sound();
myMusic.attachSound("music");

playButton.onPress=function(){
         if(this.pressed==true){
        //do nothing
} 
else {   
playButton.gotoAndStop("DOWN");
playButton.pressed=true;                                       
myMusic.start(0, 99)

}
};


stopButton.onPress=function(){
this.gotoAndStop("DOWN");
     playButton.gotoAndStop("UP");
playButton.pressed=false;                                       
myMusic.stop()

};
stopButton.onRelease=stopButton.onReleaseOutside=function(){
    this.gotoAndStop("UP");
};

Let me know

http://sofistica2.zzl.org/Yes.html

[fruitbeard]

Hi,

heres a bunch of code with play button and pause/unpause button with music loaded externally.

played = "false";
//play button
button1.onPress = function()
{
    stopAllSounds();
    Music = new Sound();
    //Music.attachSound("song1");//internal
    //Music.start(0,1);
    Music.loadSound("song1.mp3",true);//external
    played = "true";
};
//pause|unpause button
button2.onPress = function()
{
    if (played)
    {
        Music.stop();
    }
    else
    {
        Music.start(Music.position / 1000);
    }
    played = !played;
};

[ScotinOttawa]

I tried what you suggested, but it doesn't seem to be working. It just causes the buttons to move up and down.

Here is a link to the fla zipped, maybe you could check it out and let me know what I'm doing wrong?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/2300hd

[angelhdz]

Fruitbeard, your script is basically the same as mine, but loading the music externally, hehe. And in your code you didn't make the play button to stay "DOWN", which is what i think our friend Scrotin wanted, like a cassette player, you press PLAY and the button stays down/pressed. There is where i used

playButton.gotoAndStop("DOWN");

Scrotin, i'm looking to your fla. Give me some time.

[fruitbeard]

Hi,

I'm not competing with you Angel, but its more compact
I didnt make a clip to do so (which is ever so easy), i was giving you a pause/unpause button.
but to play from the paused position is the key element

Scott are you going to be putting this on the web as its mighty huge file sizeand therefore loading the music externally would be advantageous, and the file you gave a link to is mighty mixed up

[ScotinOttawa]

Scrotin, lol

alright dude, thanks.

[ScotinOttawa]

Hi,

I'm not competing with you Angel, but its more compact
I didnt make a clip to do so (which is ever so easy), i was giving you a pause/unpause button.
but to play from the paused position is the key element

Scott are you going to be putting this on the web as its mighty huge file sizeand therefore loading the music externally would be advantageous, and the file you gave a link to is mighty mixed up

yeah, its going to be on the web. I noticed it was 118mb, not sure how to shrink that down without losing image quality. Do people still use pre loaders?

I'm also not sure how to relate the fast forward to a sped up tape reel (movie clip) or to get it going clock wise at a faster speed to rewind...

[fruitbeard]

just removing the embedded mp3 files would dramatically lower the file size, probably all of it actually, then load them externally
the music would stream, very quickly with internet speeds nowadays

//
actually its not that big when compiled, but the music quality is at its lowest setting at present, if you make the music quality much better (which is what muso people want) then the file size increases lots

as for the reel thingy, you could use _rotation at various speeds when told to, i really dont have lots of time at the moment, but i'm sure Angel will help you, i just jumped in, but can help at times

[angelhdz]

lolllllll fruitbeard, i didn't said you are competing with me (i can't believe this)

it was like "omg we both think in the same script", and then I pointed the fact that you forgot the button to stay "DOWN" when pressed, that was all.

Scotin (sorry for the "scrotin" thing...i'm sleepy and tired working on my own projects)
You can have your songs outside of flash, and load them externally like fruitbeard said, with loadSound(); so the FLA don't get heavier.

just put your mp3's in the same location as your swf (flash movie) and call them like fruitbeard said

myMusic1.loadSound("thisSong.mp3", true);

Let's work in the main buttons issue first, then we work on the rewind/fastforward thing.

[angelhdz]

Scotin, do you have Flash cs3, cs4, or cs5?

[ScotinOttawa]

Scot is fine. I have CS4.

[ScotinOttawa]

just removing the embedded mp3 files would dramatically lower the file size, probably all of it actually, then load them externally
the music would stream, very quickly with internet speeds nowadays

//
actually its not that big when compiled, but the music quality is at its lowest setting at present, if you make the music quality much better (which is what muso people want) then the file size increases lots

as for the reel thingy, you could use _rotation at various speeds when told to, i really dont have lots of time at the moment, but i'm sure Angel will help you, i just jumped in, but can help at times

no worries, I appreciate your help. I actually took on this project to get up to date with action scripting and very quickly realized it wasn't going to be a simple up/down button kind of deal. I love working with this client though, so it's a matter of seeing it to the end whatever way possible.

[angelhdz]

Ok, if you give me time, this night i work on your proyect, and let it PRO. The only thing you have to do is change the myMusic.loadSound ("Your Song Here.mp3" ,true); name of your sound in the load sound first parameter, according to your song's file name. I've seen your FLA, and I know what to do. Also, as fruitbeard said, i will remove your reel animation in frames, and replace it with a simple actionscript rotation script. That will remove weight in your fla.

[ScotinOttawa]

wicked dude. if you wanna add me to msn or whatever send me a pm and we can battle through this. if you'd rather figure it out solo, that's cool too.

[angelhdz]

Look how it's going

http://sofistica2.zzl.org/Yes.html