RE: fundamental question

[Paul Willoughby]

Hi Tim,


You're definitely on the right track, but there's a few things you need to

know about before this will work. You'll see in the 'for' loop there are 3

conditions. The first one initialises a variable for counting loops, the

second one sets the limit for the number of loops and the third says how

much to increase the loop counting variable each loop (i++ just means add 1

to i). For the second condition I put in the variable 'totalUnits', but this

doesn't mean anything unless it's initialized somewhere else. Basically,

totalUnits (or whatever you want to call it) needs to refer to the total

amount of 'loc' movie clips in your movie. In fact, you don't even really

need a variable for this. If you know there are 50 'loc' movieclips and it's

not likely to change you could just as easily have:


for(i=1;i<50;i++)


If the number of units is likely to change I'd store this variable in the

text file.


If your movie clips are called loc1, loc2 etc. I wouldn't give the variables

the same name in the text file. Flash shouldn't get confused between the

variable and instance names, but when you're programming you might! Call

them vLoc1, vLoc2 so you know they are variables.


Another thing is your load variables is loading them into level 0. What I

was suggesting was loading them into a target movie clip, because you can

then get the clip to act as soon as it receives the variables. Thinking

about it, loading them into level 0 is probably better, but you would need

some kind of loop to check when the variables are loaded. Add a variable at

the end of your text file something like 'finished=1'. So here's my

(revised) suggestion for setting this up:


3 frames for loading the variables on one layer. It loops round till the

'finished' variable from the text file has loaded -


Frame 1

finished = 0

loadVariablesNum ("text.txt", 0);


Frame 2

No code, just label it "loop"


Frame 3

If(loaded == 1){

	play();

}else{

	gotoAndPlay("loop");

}


Then in the fourth frame on another layer, put an empty movie clip with

these actions on it (not in the first frame, actually on the object actions

for the movie clip). The onClipEvent(load) means it only acts once -


 OnClipEvent(Load){

	for(i=1;i<totalunits;i++){


 		if (_root["vLoc" + i] == "sold")// if the variable value

vLocX is 'sold'...{


			_root["loc" + i].gotoAndStop("sold"); //tell the

clip locX to go to sold state


 		}else if (_root["vLoc" + i] == "unsold")// if the variable

value vLocX is 'unsold'...{


 			_root["loc" + i].gotoAndStop("unsold"); //tell the

clip locX to go to unsold state


		// add a little error handling if the variable contains

neither value 


		}else{


		trace("vLoc" + i " doesn't have a value");

 	}

}


You might need to remove the comments for this to work properly. The logic

of this is pretty straightforward and it all relys on having movie clips and

variables in a sequence you can loop through. If it doesn't make sense,

stare at it until it does, always works for me :~) Seriously though, I'll be

a lot happier if you learn something from my suggestions than if I'm just

writing it for you.


Cheers!


paul


PS wotz 'lorem'?



> -----Original Message-----

>

From: Tim Hawkins [tim [dot] hawkinsuk [dot] easynet [dot] net (mailto:tim [dot] hawkinsuk [dot] easynet [dot] net)]

> Sent: 13 February 2001 11:44


> 

> loc1=sold&loc2=unsold&loc3=sold

> 

> I then placed your code in the first frame of the movie clip.


> and replaced the "mcUnit" with "loc" as i thought this 

> referred to the movie

> clip instance name minus numbering ???? as below

> 

> 

> OnClipEvent(Data){

> 	for(i=1;i<totalunits;i++){

> 		if (_root["loc" + i] == "sold"){

> 			_root["loc" + i].gotoAndStop("sold")

> 		}else{

> 			_root["loc" + i].gotoAndStop("unsold")

> 	}

> }

> 

> Followed by a stop action.


> Then added a load variables on the first frame of the main time line

> 

> loadVariablesNum ("text.txt", 0);

> 

> Followed by a stop action