Flash Site Design - Buttons interfering with animation

Author

Buttons interfering with animation

spamGactus

2007-07-17, 3:15 am

I am modifying a Flash 8 movie. The fla can be downloaded here:
http://www.cjreynolds.com/fuda.html

There is a movie clip in the fla called "page1" with a text box with six menu
items (Fuda Sushi, Fuda Maki, etc.). When the swf is run, each item has a carat
charactor to the left that moves further left when the menu item is moused
over, and stays there until the mouse leaves. I have added a "button" (movie
clip called "japon_but") to each item. When I attach a mouse-release code to
the buttons, the carat no longer stays left when moused over.

To see the effect, test the movie, go to "Cuisine Japonaise", and mouse over
and stay over each menu item - the first two have mouse-release code added, and
you can see that the carats beside these items act different from the botton
four.

I've tried locking and hiding the button layers, and tried moving the layers
below the text box layer, nothing changes. Am I doing something wrong?

I can't find what triggers the carats to move on mouse-over, or I would just
add the mouse-release code to that object or frame...

Any suggestions?

joe

aniebel

2007-07-17, 6:16 pm

To figure out where those buttons were located, I ran "Test Movie" (CTRL+Enter)
and the hit CTRL+B to see the bandwidth profiler. Not the frame number in the
bandwidth profiler when you get to the section with the menu you are talking
about.

Then go to that frame number on the timeline. There is a large movieclip there
that contains everything on that page. Its instance name is "page1".
Double-click on that. Now you're inside that page and you see the menu, right?
The menu is just text and then instances of the movieclip "arr2_main" which are
doing the button actions. You cannot see them in the final movie but they are
the ones doing the work. The text is merely sitting under the buttons for
visual reference.

So the best thing for you to do is mimic what they did. In the text field, add
a new line of type for your new item. You may have to reposition the field now
to center it but make sure you repositions all the instance of the movieclips
acting as buttons too or they will not work. Then copy an instance of
"arr2_main", create a new layer above the topmost arr2_main layer, create a new
keyframe in the appropriate frame and paste your new instance. Then copy and
paste the code that is applied to the other buttons but change the destination.

spamGactus

2007-07-17, 10:15 pm

Thanks!

joe

aniebel

2007-07-18, 6:16 pm

You're welcome!