Creating an Animated Hidden Menu System - Page 12

Notice you can't see that an Action has been assigned to the Button symbols in Frame 15 (Hint: look at the keyframe for layers Section 1, Section 2, etc. in Frame 15. There are Actions assigned to button symbol instances... not frames.). Also remember that this timeline stops at Frame 16 because of the assigned action in the layer actions & labels. This allows the user to make a selection from the menu that has just been animated onto the screen. The timeline continues to play when a Play action is issued from the Action assigned to a button symbol instance once the user releases the mouse. Once the playback head reaches Frame 25 it encounters a action that tells Flash to go back to and play Frame 1 where a Stop action is then encountered. This timeline then waits to play again until the playback head is instructed to move to the frame labeled Activate Nav.

Background:
The background is no biggie. Using the Background graphic symbol I just tweened an alpha setting (remember... Instance Properties dialog box...) between Frames 3 - 15 and Frames 17 - 24. Fade in, fade out. Just create a new layer below the previous.

Here's a shot of this layer. Keyframes are at Frames 3, 15, 16, 17 and 24.