FLASH: trouble with variables between movies (long)

[Jay K]

I've got a confusing one here.....


I have a main interface movie that uses two separate other movies that need

to be kept in context of one another (a text movie and a graphics movie,

mainly controlled through the interface movie).


Set up like:


|-------------------------------------------------|

|                     interface movie  swf                       |

|    |----------------|      |---------------------|     |

|    |     text swf       |      |     graphics swf        |     |

|    |----------------|      |---------------------|     |

|                                                                          |

|                                                                          |

|-------------------------------------------------|


The each frame in the text movie has a default label reference associated

with it that the graphics movie should use. The text movie needs buttons

that should act as triggers to make the graphics movie go to a different

frame. A button in the text movie should behave as an on/off type, you click

it and it tells the graphics movie to switch from the "default" frame and

show the frame with the "other" label. (am I losing anybody yet ;-)


I've set it so that when a frame in the graphics movie is loaded, it tells

the main level to set a variable called imageFrame = "name of a frame

label".  So, as the user steps through the text frames of the text movie by

using the main interface movie, the graphics movie shows whatever frame

contains that graphic associated with the text in the text movie. The

buttons in the text movie are over words to act as triggers (sort of like

html links but this is running stand alone and not in a browser so I can't

really use linked text - I think) and tell graphics movie to show a frame

with a graphic pertaining to the linked text.


So far it works properly but only once. Eg. I click through the text,

everything updates on screen as it should. I then click on the "linked" text

(via the invisible button over top of it), it switches the graphics movie to

the "other" frame, I click it again and the graphics movie switches back to

the "default" frame. Here's where the problem is, If I click a third time,

nothing happens. The graphics movie doesn't go to the "other" frame, it just

sits there.


>From the button in the text movie I have:

on (release) {

 if (imageFrame =="other") {

  tellTarget ("../image_window") {

   gotoAndStop ("default");

            imageFrame = "default";

  }

 }else{

        tellTarget ("../image_window") {

            gotoAndStop ("other");

            imageFrame = "other";

        }

    }

}



>From the frame action in the graphics movie (when it enters the "other"

frame):

tellTarget ("../text_window") {

     imageFrame = "other";

}



It appears as though there is a third condition that is not checked because

it seems as though both conditions are ignored on the third press so that

imageFrame doesn't equal "default" or "other".


Clear as mud, I know. I have this nagging feeling that there's a real easy

way to do this that I'm not aware of yet and that I've made everything over

complicated.


Any ideas?


Jay K




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