FLASH: action script/tell target query

[SUGAR in their vitamins?]

hello,


this is going to be a bit long (sorry), but i have

many questions cos i'm stumped.


i am implementing a flash navbar for a website.

the content itself will be static html, leaving the

flash to control the pages, so to speak.


the navbar has a "parent" set of buttons that in turn

activate a "child" set of buttons:


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

|

|   PARENT BUTTON 1   PARENT 2   PARENT 4   ETC

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

|   child button 1   child 2   child 3

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


my client has requested that the following behavior occur:



_ on roll-over, the child menu rolls down and these two

(the parent and child) corresponding areas "stick" allowing

someone to use the child navigation directly.


_ the parent buttons will not call a Get URL to any html

pages. they will only need to control the child navigation.

however, upon clicking on a child link, this should

take the user to the corresponding html page.


_ unless the user rolls over any other of the parent

button, the current "selected" parent/child option should

remain active, even on roll out.



i have 5 parent buttons in this navbar. i am using six scenes

in the fla (including the base scene). each scene is for

the corresponding child area. i have six frames in each scene.


on the base scene, i am using a single layer for

all actions. the first frame i am using an

action script as:


If (location eq "about")

	Begin Tell Target ("/aboutUs")

		Go to and Stop (about, "About us")

	End Tell Target

Else If (...


Else

	Stop

End If


each of the other frames (in the actions layer) in this fla

has only a Stop action.


i have separate layers for the parent and each child

button areas in each scene of the fla.


on the home scene, i am only labelling the frames for

the different child areas.



each of the corresponding scenes uses a similar framework.

in the first frame of the actions layers for a given child

scene (man, i hope this is making sense!) i have the following

actionscript:


If (location eq "services")

	Begin Tell Target ("/ourServices")

		Go to and Stop (services, "Our services")

	End Tell Target

	Else If (location eq "...


	Else If (location eq "about")

	Get URL ("about.us.html")

	Stop

End If


in other words, if "about" is the scene you're at,

then call the correct URL and so on. (this might be

wonky, and might be smarter to put into the child

buttons themselves?)


each of the other frames uses a Stop action, just as in home.


ok, in this example child scene ("about"), the parent

button is now replaced with a movie clip which i have given

the Instance label "aboutUs" that i was calling with the

tell target in the home scene.

the movie clip doesn't have any other behavior. it

is meant to indicate that you here (here, being the

"about us" child area). this movie clip shows the

highlighted state of the parent link on rollover to

help indicate this.



going back to the parent links, each button has

actions (inside the fla itself) like this:


On (Roll Over)

	Go to and Stop ("frame label x")

End On

On (Release)

	Go to and Stop (scene, "frame label x")

End On

On (Roll Out)

	Go to and Stop ("home base")

End On


i chose to use <current scene> for these

because each of the child scenes mirrors the

home scene with the exception of the

specific parts that refer to the scene one is at.

i think this might also be a bit clunky, but

when i tried to condense it all into one

scene, i wasn't able to get the behavior i wanted

at all.


i'm wondering if there is a smarter way to implement

this part of the structure as it seems like i'm

just duplicating the home scene and only changing

one or two things.ie to reference the

bits in the home scene which will always be constant,

and only have the appropriate corresponding changes for any given

child scene? i sort of tried this, but the behavior

was not as i expected.


the corresponding child buttons in these areas use

action scripts like this:


On (Release)

	Go to and Stop ("scene x")

	Get URL ("y.html")

End On



in the html, i've done the following to assist in

changing urls:


<PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="testing.swf?location=X">


where X is whatever scene should be at.


i think this should cover everything i've done with

this flash movie.


the problems i'm running into are:


_ when i roll-over the parent buttons, i can't get them

to "stick" on roll-out without a mouse click

and even then, if the user rolls out anywhere,

the parent button highlighting remains, but the

child navigation cannot be retained, which the

client claims is counter-intuitive.

and i don't blame her because it actually makes

understanding what is going on very confusing.

somehow, there needs to be a dynamic relationship

between where you are and what you're rolling-over.

the click is acceptable for the client, but it

should also behave the same on a roll-over. in other words:


1. default state


2. roll over parent button a


3. parent button is highlighted and corresponding child

navigation rolls out and stay there.


4. if a user rolls over one of the other parent

buttons, then undo 3, and highlight this new

parent, roll out its child links and stay.


if a user rolls out anywhere that is not another

parent button, do not do any roll out behavior

unless another parent button is then rolled over

and/or clicked on.


does this make any sense?


i'm thinking, a possible compromise might be a

an on/off type of clicking function on the button?



_ when i click on a child button and get moved over

to x url, i can't seem to figure out how to

show in the navbar on this different page,

where you are in the scene. it always comes up

the default condition (ie, nothing "selected").


_ the client does not want to use frames to implement this.



i'm not really a programmer. after a lot of trial

and error, i thinnk i'm a little better than fumbling

with the action scripts :), but clearly, i've reached

the limit of my expertise.


what am i doing wrong? how can i make this work?


if you want to look at an example, you can go to


http://www.webworksconstruction.com/idem/index_05.10.html


if you have any questions, cos it is a bit confusing

to me at times as well, please ask.


many thanks in advance.


hasta. --dk




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