Actionscript 2: The Fader Class - Page 4

Creating the Fading Events

All our functions are static. The following error message is given if by mistake we call a function static:

What we have done wrong in such case is we have referred to an instance variable outside of the function, for example a variable we have defined right at the beginning of the class and which we now refer to. If we have to do that then our function is not static any more. In actionscript the Math functions are for example static. Static functions form a unit for themselves. Anyways, coming back to the script in our first function we create a movieclip and position it using x and y coordinates. If we load a swf instead of jpg we want to make sure that the root of the swf is its own root and not the parents' root. So we add _lockroot here, which is a very handy property introduced with Flash 7.

The second function is the fading function with mainPic as argument, which will be the path to our picture or movie to be loaded. Now here comes the point why we have created two movieclips. We created those, whereby the second one resides within the first one. The reason for this is that now we can have two independent events associated with each of the movieclips, which we can manipulate separately. If we had only one movieclip and we create the same event in the two onEnterFrame functions we could not continue after deleting the function once. The rest of the fader function are just typical alpha tweens and I do not go into further details. One more explanation is, however, necessary. We have to create a variable fade, to lead the compiler into one direction not to repeat the same events over and over again, which is done by changing the value of fade once a task is completed. Now go to the next page for more.