Hidden, Animated Rollover Menu's: Flash 5 Update! - Page 3

A Word or Two Before We Start:

First of all let me say I'm not a technical writer. So if my use of comma's, quote marks and general punctuation bothers you I'll apologize in advance. I'm a graphic designer and multimedia programmer. Now, let's get on with it...

The life force behind any interactive, complex animation is movie clips. It's important to remember that movie clips can be nested and play their entire timeline even if the playback head doesn't appear to be moving. For all you Director folks this is somewhat contrary to the methodology we're used to of looping in a frame or a series of frames while another piece of media like digital video or even a Flash animation play's it's timeline. This particular example uses only one movie clip but it's fairly hefty and I was able to duplicate functionality by using multiple movie clips. However, the previous method required a little more extensive use of Tell Target in Flash 4 which is now considered as "deprecated syntax" in Flash 5. In this lesson we'll take advantage of identifying the target and applying a method through the use of dot syntax.. There is quite a bit of "hidden" ActionScript and a basic knowledge of specifying targets on different layers is recommended but not required. In some cases it's probably better if you've never even used Tell Target because you have to change your way of thinking if you have. If Tell Target has been a friend of yours I suggest you read up on "with" in the ActionScript dictionary and snoop through the "Working With Movie Clips" section in the ActionScript reference. Also before starting on your own endeavor make sure you map out your menu. Get it clear in your head by putting it on paper first. Oh, and before I forget, ActionScript now resembles JavaScript more than ever. If you know JavaScript, the scripting will be a piece of cake. If it's been a while since you've used JavaScript or you've never even seen JavaScript don't sweat it... just follow the directions and afterward you may want to hit a few sites to learn basic JavaScript syntax structure.