Auto start plus control with playback buttons

Hi guys,

I would like to know how this is done. I have an animation running off the main timeline itself. What I would like to do is have a control panel controlling the movie as well as have the movie play automatically.

The movie should start automatically and when the user clicks on any of the playback buttons such as previous the animation should move in a reverse frame order to the previous keyframe which may be 5 frames away and stop. Similarly for the forward button. If I click on the play button then the movie should start playing from where it currently is.

I really require some help with this urgently!!!

Thanks a lot.

An example of what i mean is http://www.activemeta.net/index.php