I GIVE UP WITH BUTTONS AND SCENE CHANGES

[anthony1500]

Well I make a button, I highlight it and go to actions. I put in this code,
on (release) {
gotoAndPlay ("design2", "background 1");
}
Where "design 2" is the same scene that I am in. (I have also tryed using "current scene and it didn't work)also, "background 1" is the frame label. When I click the button it ignores these instructions and goes past this movie clip on to the next one. I have also had several different "Stop" actions before, during and after and of this mess and it does nothing. It actually worked once and then I turned around and it didn't. Also, when I try toi direct the movie to a new scene with a button it doesn't work.
HELP!
Anthony

[anthony1500]

Well I make a button, I highlight it and go to actions. I put in this code,
on (release) {
gotoAndPlay ("design2", "background 1");
}
Where "design 2" is the same scene that I am in. (I have also tryed using "current scene and it didn't work)also, "background 1" is the frame label. When I click the button it ignores these instructions and goes past this movie clip on to the next one. I have also had several different "Stop" actions before, during and after and of this mess and it does nothing. It actually worked once and then I turned around and it didn't. Also, when I try toi direct the movie to a new scene with a button it doesn't work.
HELP!
Anthony

[pknair]

well, the code itself shouldn't be the problem. try setting a stop action right in the last frame of that section of your scene. so, for example, if your label is in frame 5 and you want it to play 5 frames, then try putting a stop action in frame 10. then try that button again. it might just be playing too quickly to notice that it's working. also, don't specify the name of the scene - if you have to specify the name, then specify it in relation to the root or parent. if you just want to reference the current scene, use 'current scene'. i know that's what you did before, but trust me, that's the right thing to do. if you say 'design 2' then you're going to be looking for a movie clip inside your current scene called 'design 2' and flash won't find it, so that's why the action won't work.

so your code should look something like:

gotoandplay("./", "background 1");

also, if that doesn't seem to be working, try changing your label to not have spaces. that's just good practice. try replacing spaces with underscores, if you must, but spaces are a BAD habit. even though it should work fine here, i would still advise against it, just to make sure you get into good coding practices.


hth,
Deep (just a guy)
<font face="arial" size="2">
Pradeep Kumar Nair, B.Math
Interactive Developer
http://www.bluespark.com
ICQ: 39102360
</font>

[anthony1500]

Hi Thanks for the help. I think I may have that ok now but PRELOADERS? I have finished the movie it has 5 scenes. Its size is .swf=2.34mb and the .fla=5.05mb is this big? Do I need a preloader for every scene? When I test it on the bandwidth profiler with the streaming on it still takes along time. Like 1 minute to begin. There is a big spike at the start but I can't really see away to rid that. Also the preloader I used was basic but I placed it in the opening scene by itself, is this good? I thought I would have put it in the first 2 frames of the movie's opening scene.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Anthony [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_mad.gif[/img]

[pknair]

really, it depends on what you want to do. you can do it per scene, or you can do it once for the entire file, or you could even create a preloader movie that will in turn load in multiple movies.

generally, if you think it's likely for people to be jumping back and forth between scenes, then you may want to load most of the movie at the beginning. if, however, it's going to be played progressively (scene 1 > scene 2 > ... > scene n) then you can put in preloaders in every scene, or every other scene, because while it's playing back the previous scene, it will still be loading the other scene. that way, it will seem to take less loading time, and will also still play smoothly - but if it happens to be a really slow download, you'll have some way to let the user know that there's more coming, and not freak them out by making them think their system has hanged. it all depends on what you want the user experience to be.

incidentally, if you have a massive spike at the beginning, you should look into why, and see if you can bring that down a bit. if it's necessary, cool, but it's always best to try and keep everything right around the same level - the simple reason being that you don't want to have the movie suddenly hang cuz it's loading, especially before the user even knows what's going to happen.


hth,
Deep (just a guy)
<font face="arial" size="2">
Pradeep Kumar Nair, B.Math
Interactive Developer
http://www.bluespark.com
ICQ: 39102360
</font>