Re: Instances

[John Croteau]

Hi Steven,


> I've been fooling around with Flash 3 for a few days and while

> the bulk of it seems very straight-forward but I am stuck on

> one part, and of course this "crappy" book from Macromedia is

> no help.

> What is the Instance Option/Instance Name used for?

> For example,

> I'm on the "movie" screen.

> I select a symbol "thinking loop" which is a movie clip.

> I go MODIFY>INSTANCE

> I am giving the option to type something in the INSTANCE NAME

> box.  What should I type?

The Instance Name is the name that you assign to a particular Instance

of a Movie Clip when using Tell Target or FSCommand. You can chose any

name to refer to an Instance. An Instance name refers only to a

particular instance of a master Movie Clip so that it can be

distinguished from other copies of that master symbol.


The Master copy of a Symbol is stored in the Library.

Once a copy of a symbol is placed on the Stage it becomes an Instance of

the Master Symbol. There can be any number of Instances (copies) of a

symbol in a movie. Once an Instance is created it can have additional

properties applied to it.


There are three types of Symbols that have three common Instance

properties:

     Behavior  

     Color Effect

     Template (for Generator) 


  Movie Clips also have an 

     Instance Name (the name used to refer to it from a Tell Target or

FSCommand)


  Buttons also have

     Actions

     Tracking Options


  Graphics (static or animated)

     Play Mode Option


The same Master Symbol can be used differently in different Instances.

For example by changing the behavior of a Movie Clip's Instance's

behavior to Graphic you can use one of it's frames as a static graphic.

Thus you may not have to recreate a symbol if it already exists in

another symbol (only change its behavior and use the same Master

symbol). 


(In Flash 2 the Stage was called the Canvas)


-----------                               -----------------------

John Croteau

croteauerols [dot] com (mailto:croteauerols [dot] com)

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