_root.gotoAndPlay(varName) doesn't work

[Giblaz]

Right now, I'm developing a flash game, and I have pop-up text boxes. There is a continue button on these boxes. Clicking the continue button makes the box dissapear, and on the last frame of the animation, I originally had this code -

_root.gotoAndStop(varNum);
removeMovieClip(this);

This gave me problems. varNames value was two, and when it sent me to scene two (my game is split into 3 scenes, Menu, Options, and Game) I assumed that the flash worked that way. THen I changed it.

_root.gotoAndStop("Game", varNum);
removeMovieClip(this);

However, this gave me the same problem. THen I tried...

tellTarget(_root) {
  gotoAndStop("Game", varNum);
}
removeMovieClip(this);

and THAT wouldn't work. THen I dug down into all possible ways of doing this and tried this...

with(_root) {
  gotoAndStop("Game", varNum);
}
removeMovieClip(this);

And, to my disbelief, it didn't work. Suggestions would be nice

[oldnewbie]

When targeting the main timeline never target scene names or in fact frame numbers, but labeled frames instead.

If you target a frame number, you have to understand that it's a cumulative frame number of all frames in all scenes previous to the targeted frame in the targeted scene, including the frames of a preloader if you have one...

Thus if you were targeting frame 1 of your Game scene, and you had a 5 frames preloader scene, a 10 frames Menu scene, and a 20 frames Options scene, you actually have to target frame number -> 5+10+20+1 = 36, to actually end up on frame 36. This is more error prone, and furthermore if you ever edit your previous scenes (shorthen them for example...), you'd have to re-calculate and change all of your goto's.

Target a labeled frame instead. Label the targeted frame in the targeted scene with an unique label such as my_target, add _root or _level0 to your path and target the labeled frame...

code:

---

on(release){

_level0.gotoAndStop("my_target");

}

---

See my first post in this thread about targeting labeled frames and how to set them up...

http://www.flashkit.com/board/showth...hreadid=584159 // labels

Oh! And next time use AS & /AS tags rather than PHP ones... To hard on my old eyes!

[Giblaz]

Thanks a bunch! That's very helpful, because now I can just make the equation _root.gotoAndPlay(varName + 8) assuming 8 frames are whats ahead in my movie (which it is)

Cheers

[oldnewbie]

Watch it if you ever edit those though, forget and start wondering why it ain't working anymore!

[Giblaz]

hmm, it would probably be a good idea to make it a variable so I can change it in case I encounter that problem...