RE: FLASH: "clickable" non-buttons?

[Len Harrison]

If you are asking can you use graphic symbols, bitmaps, or movie clips as

buttons without explicitly making them buttons, the answer is no.


If you want to do the equivalent of this, create an invisible button, either

natively or through setting its instance transparency property and lay that

on top of the image you want to act as a button. Make sure it is in a layer

on top of the graphic that appears to be the button.


If you want to create a button from any symbol, you can also do that. Just

change its property sheet to button. However, its pre-existent instances

will not have any actions ascribed to them. You will have to create those in

every keyframe where the button appears and you want something to happen.

They will also behave like buttons if you have defined over and down images

for them. This could be confusing for users if there is no event attached to

them.


If you want to duplicate a symbol as a button you can do that too. Just copy

the symbol and change its property to button.


So, depending on what you are trying to do, there is probably at least one

solution that doesn't require redoing the project.


Something to understand if you are new to Flash is that buttons have no

predefined behaviors. They get their behaviors from their instance in a

keyframe. This behavior will be inherited on all subsequent keyframes

defined for that layer. However, inheritance is static from the moment you

define the keyframe, not dynamic. So if you change a graphic or movie clip

to a button on a layer which has many keyframes already defined, you either

need to define the behavior for every keyframe or cut the button, create a

new layer, paste in place, and delete the button from the keyframes in the

old layer. Alternatively you can insert a layer on top of the one you want

the button to be on and then put an invisible button there. This might not

give you the rollover effect you want without inserting new frames, of

course, but that's Flash.


It would be cool to be able to change the properties of something without

jumping to a new frame to do so, but you can't. It would be cool to have

"floating frames" that could move to any point in the timeline. But they

don't exist.


However, it is possible to simulate some kinds of effects using

"semi-invisible" buttons. Set the button to some low alpha value and change

its color between the various states. You can use masks, alone or in

conjunction with movie clips to create effects as well.


Hope this helps. If any of this is unclear feel free to email me. Samples

available on request.


len harrison

instructional designer

lenhabtcorp [dot] com

-----Original Message-----

From:

ownershocker [dot] com

 [

ownershocker [dot] com]On">mailto:ownershocker [dot] com]On

 Behalf Of Unger,

Russell

Sent: Friday, October 09, 1998 11:37 AM

To:

'flashershocker [dot] com

'

Subject: FLASH: "clickable" non-buttons?



Is it possible to take a pre-existing library item and make it into a button

(having an action--ie a redirect to a different http location upon clicking)

without re-doing the entire project?


Thanks for the assistance!


Russell E. Unger


Modern Business Technology

1300 E. Woodfield Road, Suite 302

Schaumburg, IL 60173-4984

tel: 847.605.1917 x256 (vm x411)

fax: 847.605.1905

rungermbtinc [dot] com

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