Creating Naviagation in Flash

Interactive movies - change based upon the viewer's actions

Button

The button is a special symbol with 4 frames

• Up State - the normal view
• Over State - when the mouse is over it
• Down State - when the user is over and has pressed the button
• Hit State - the clickable area of the button

You can create invisible buttons by hidding the first frame (have nothing on the up state) but have a hit state defined - so Flash can dectect when the user rolls over an area.

Buttons can have layers in their time line - which is always nice. You can incorporate animation by placing a Movie Clip in the time line of the button.

Actionscript

Actionscript Terminology

Variable - a named placeholder for specific information. Think of a bread box. It holds bread, but is not bread.

Keyword - a reserved word for Actionscript. Flash won't let you name your variable one of these keywords.

Function - a group of statements which can be run by calling the function name.

Argument - value(s) passed to a function. It gives the function more information to run and perform specific tasks

Objects - abstract types of data

Methods - functions attached to objects

Properties - describe an object

Comments - a way to write notes to yourself in the script, to remind you of what you are doing. These are ignored by flash.

Using Actionscript

Event handlers listen for events occuring during the playing of a Flash movie.

You can use gotoAndPlay/gotoAndStop and pass a frame number, or a frame label as an arguement. However, numbers may move as you add/remove animation, but your code won't update. Lables move with your frames as you add/remove them. They can also work better as they can provide meaningful information about the frame you are moving to.