Re: FLASH: Preloading loading movies in levels.... !

[unique]

At the exact moment of 2000.01.08.13.47, her/his local time, Andrew Golden

<

angoldenairmail [dot] net

> put forth:


> Well, I have been lurking for awhile and I finally have a question.

> 

> I am working on a small site with what seems like it would be a pretty 

> basic menu. To see what I am talking, go to this link:

> 

> http://www.cyberramp.net/~agolden/flash/sn.swf

> 

> The four buttons are pretty simple and straight forward. When each button 

> is clicked, I need to see which of the four pictures is visible in the 

> top left hand corner of the screen and react based on that information. 

> If the video button is clicked and the video tape is showing than I just 

> need to stop the loop on the videotape image,  fade out the s/n logo and 

> fade in some text(where the s/n logo was). If the video button is clicked 

> while the movie ticket image is clicked, I need to fade out the ticket 

> image and the s/n logo, fade in the video image and some text(same 

> location as above). the same pattern is correct if any of the other two 

> images are visible at the time of the mouse event. Once the video screen 

> is loaded, a click on any other button will have to fade out the video 

> image and video text and fade in the new image and new text(corresponding 

> to which button was clicked of course).

> 

> anyone have any suggestions as to how to lay this out? At the moment the 

> build on of the screen is one scene and than it switches to a different 

> scene where the menu is already built to do the looping of the images. 

> Yes, I could have easily done that in one scene but I find it easier to 

> work when things are broken up more. Any ideas or suggestions? With four 

> buttons and four possible paths for each button to take upon being 

> clicked I am finding myself somewhat overwhelmed. Hopefully someone will 

> have some wonderfull idea as to how best simplify this. TIA!


Andrew,


I'm still too new to Flash 4 to be totally confident of my suggestion here, but

I'm pretty sure that this should be do-able in Flash:


I would lay out an event tree, diagramming all possible conditions, choices and

outcomes. Using this visual structure, program your buttons by using tests of

*variables* that (you've set up to) keep track of the states of various

conditions (such as, what image is currently showing).


So, every time a button is pressed, the states (values) of various current

conditions (variables) are evaluated (by your ActionScript programming), and

then a decision is made as to what should be the effect of having pressed that

button.


Just thought that this angle might get you going till others with more

experience chime in ...


HTH,


Ken Sherwood


                         *zenkat: the Flash trailer*

                    http://www.kensherwood.com/zenkat.htm


kensherwood.com

http://www.kensherwood.com





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