getting a sprite to move continuously after a single keypress ...

[onDelivery]

I was following a tutorial on moving clips with the keypad - I got the character moving around fine, but just using 'if (Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT)' type statements, which means the sprite just moves while the key is down. So I tried to come up with a way to make the sprite move continuously using this code attached to an mc:

onClipEvent (load) {
	step = 5;
	movieWith = 300;
	movieHeight = 300;
	this.stop();
	_root.dir = "";
}
onClipEvent (keyDown) {
	if (Key.getCode() == Key.UP) {
		_root.dir = "up";
	} else if (Key.getCode() == Key.RIGHT) {
		_root.dir = "right";
	} else if (Key.getCode() == Key.DOWN) {
		_root.dir = "down";
	} else if (Key.getCode() == Key.LEFT) {
		_root.dir = "left";
	}
}
onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
	if (_root.dir="right" and this._x<300) {
		this.attachMovie("sprite", "bug", 10);
		this._x = this._x+step;
		this._rotation = 45;
		this._xscale = -100;
	} else if (_root.dir="left" and this._x>0) {
		this.attachMovie("sprite", "bug", 10);
		this._x = this._x-step;
		this._rotation = -45;
		this._xscale = 100;
	} else if (_root.dir="up" and this._y>0) {
		this.attachMovie("sprite", "bug", 10);
		this._y = this._y-step;
		this._rotation = 0;
		this._xscale = 100;
	} else if (_root.dir="down" and this._y<300) {
		this.attachMovie("sprite", "bug", 10);
		this._y = this._y+step;
		this._rotation = 180;
		this._xscale = 100;
	} else {
		this.attachMovie("sprite", "bug", 10);
		_root.dir = "";
	}
}

How can I fix it? Am I on the right track? Is there a different appraoch?

[garbage]

onClipEvent (load) {
	step = 5;
	movieWith = 300;
	movieHeight = 300;
	this.stop();
	_root.dir = "";
                this.attachMovie("sprite", "bug", 10);
}
onClipEvent (keyDown) {
	if (Key.isDown(Key.UP)) {
		_root.dir = "up";
	} else if (Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT)) {
		_root.dir = "right";
	} else if (Key.isDown(Key.DOWN)) {
		_root.dir = "down";
	} else if (Key.isDown(Key.LEFT)) {
		_root.dir = "left";
	}
}
onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
	if (_root.dir eq "right" && this._x < 300) {
		this._x += step;
		this._rotation = 45;
		this._xscale = -100;  //  what s this for??
	} else if (_root.dir eq "left" && this._x > 0) {
		this._x -= step;
		this._rotation = -45;
		this._xscale = 100;
	} else if (_root.dir eq "up" && this._y > 0) {
		this._y -= step;
		this._rotation = 0;
		this._xscale = 100;
	} else if (_root.dir eq "down" && this._y < 300) {
		this._y += step;
		this._rotation = 180;
		this._xscale = 100;
	} else {
		_root.dir = "";
	}
}

That should work a little better. Actually, it should work a lot better, since your original code didn't work!

[onDelivery]

wicked! cheers bro - that's better (the -xscale thing is 2 flip sprite horizontal)

[garbage]

Oh right ... neat trick! Glad the code worked out for you ... make sure you click the 'Mark Thread Resolved' link at the bottom of this page

[onDelivery]

ok, will do - could u check out my pacman problem in the games section if u've got time? I'm getting there slowly by myself - sussed out how to make mazes with arrays/strings - can understand how the level up thing works... but ... pleeeez have a look, it's another movement issue. It's a bit of a big ask, but u might enjoy trying to read the spanish comments ... cough