Actions
Actions represent the final pieces of the interactivity puzzle. They allow you to instruct your movies (or external applications) to perform tasks. A single event can trigger multiple actions, which can be performed and executed simultaneously on different targets.
We'll take a brief look at the actions available in Flash. For an in-depth examination of actions using real-world applications, see Chapter 11 of the book. The options in the table (below) can be found by clicking the Add Action button on the Action tab (Figure 10):
ACTION | DESCRIPTION |
Go To | Causes a movie to jump to the specified frame or scene on the timeline and stop or begin playing from that point forward. |
Play | Causes a movie to begin playing from its current position on the timeline. |
Stop | Causes a movie to stop playing. |
Toggle High Quality | Turns antialiasing off and on. |
Stop All Sounds | Stops all currently playing audio tracks. |
Get URL | Opens a browser window with the specified URL loaded, or sends variables to the specified URL. |
FS Command | Sends data to the application hosting your Flash movie (such as a browser, projector, Director movie). |
Load/Unload Movie | Loads a Flash movie, at the specified URL, within Flash player, or it unloads a previously loaded movie. You can also use it to load variables from a remote file into a movie. |
Tell Target | A command that is used as a way of identifying a movie so that you can get it to perform an action. |
If Frame Is Loaded | Determines whether a particular frame has been loaded and, if it has, performs an action. |
On Mouse Event | Mouse events are actually triggers rather than actions. For more information, see Events earlier in this excerpt. |
If | Checks to see if a conditional statement is true and, if it is, performs an action. |
Loop | Continuously performs an action or set of actions as long as a condition is met. When the condition ceases to be met, the loop stops. |
Call | Performs a set of actions attached to a particular frame. |
Set Property | Allows you to set various movie properties. |
Set Variable | Allows you to create a new variable or update an existing one. |
Duplicate/Remove Movie Clip | Allows you to create or remove instances of movie clips dynamically. |
Drag Movie Clip | Allows you to make a movie-clip instance draggable in relation to the pointer's movement. |
Trace | Displays a custom message when an action is performed. Used primarily to test interactivity. |
Comment | This option allows you to place comments in your script to help clarify the underlying logic. |