I’m just a starter in Flash and am using Flash 5, i have seen some really neat buttons while surfing and they have really impressed one.\r\rone type is The Blinking Type,\rafter you have clicked on the button, It blinks for like a Couple of times and then the action is passed,\rplease tell me how i can make a BLINKING BUTTON in Flash 5.\r\rthanx
ok… but after you reply once to this, I’m going to move it to the Flash 5.0 topic forum, instead of this one. It’s not a big deal, just telling you so you’ll know where to look. 
\r\rI’m going to assume that you’ve just opened up the program for the first time, so if I’m explaining too much, just let me know.\r\rFlash buttons are one of three native objects of Flash.\r\rGraphics, Buttons, and Movie clips. Remember these three things, as they are vital to Flash usage.\r\rGraphics: you might think that you understand already, but you probebly don’t. A jpg, or png, or other type of picture, is not called a graphic in Flash terminology. They are “raster” based “imported” objects, and are not native to Flash\r\rMovie Clips: If you take a look at Flash when you first open it, you’ll see the timeline set in a frame above your stage. For now you only need to know this. Movie clips are objects which have their own independent timeline. I’ll post a link where you can see a write up I did the other day, concerning movie cips.\r\rButtons: Buttons in Flash are very unique objects. Rather than having a long string of frames, like your timeline, they have 4 frames. The first is called the “Up” frame, the second is called “Over”, the third is called “Down”, and the fourth is called “Hit”. Each frame can contain anything you wish, from imported pictures, to imported sounds, or graphics created using Flash.\r\rDo this first.\r\rOpen Flash. In Flash’s menu options, choose “Window/Common Libraries/Buttons”. A “library” of premade buttons will open up. There will be seven folders and two buttons shown to you. You are free to open up the folders and look through them. Find a button that you like the look of and grab it. Drag it onto the stage and drop it there.\r\rIt will apear on the stage with a light blue square sarounding it. This square is called a “bounding box” and it only shows up when you have an object, “imported” or Native, selected on the stage.\r\rYou will also see, if you look on the timeline, that frame one, on layer one, now is filled in with grey, and it has a small black dot in the center of it. This is the frame that contains the button.\r\rNow… select the black arrow tool from your tool panel, and double click on the button on the stage. You will know if you have done it correctly as two things will happen.\r\r1) the timeline will change. Now the frames should be considerably larger, and the first four frames in the timeline are marked as I discribed them to you, as “up” “Over” “Down”, and “Hit”.\r\r2) If you look in the upper left corner of the timeline you will now see two tabs. The first says “Scene1” and the second has the name of the button you selected.\r\rThis is called the edit in place method of editing objects. You can also edit things by double clicking on them in your library, but this way you can see them in relation to everything else on the stage, so it is the prefered method. The tabs are vital to editing in place, as you can stack buttons inside of movie clips, or graphics; graphics inside movie clips or buttons, and movie clips inside buttons or graphics. When editing in place, always look to the tabs to find out what it is your editing. Sometimes it can be confusing.\r\rNow. Click with your mouse on frame 2 of the timeline the “Over” frame. You’ll see that the button is different now on the stage. This is the “state” of the button, when someone’s mouse moves over the button. You can place anything in here (except perhaps another button). Many people will place a small movie clip in this state so that when a mouse is over the button, something animated happens. (I prefer a different method, but I’ll explain that later)\r\rNow click on the “Down” frame of the timeline. The button has changed again. This is what the button will look like when a user presses down on the left mouse button, while over this object. You are also welcome to place a movie clip in this frame, though I suggest against it. Usually when a user clicks, he does so quickly, and any movie clip will be gone before it has time to do anything (as the button reverts back to the over state when the mouse button is released).\r\rNow click on the “Hit” frame of the button. This is by far the most unimpressive of the button states, but it is probebly the most important. The user Never sees this state… it doesn’t matter what you put in here, it will never show up on the stage in a final production. What you put in here is simple the area where you wish a user to be able to interact with a button. That is, IF the user moves the mouse over whatever is in this frame, then the button will show the “Over” frame. If the user clicks on this button, he MUST do so on what ever is in this frame.\r\rFrom this point I want you to look at the button as it works. Use menu option “Control/Test Movie” (or CTRL+Enter) and Flash will open up a Flash player with the button. Interact with the button for a while, it is not set to do anything right now anyway, except it’s basic frame states.\r\rclose the test window.\r\rWith frame “Hit” selected, grab everything that is on the stage and move it a couple inches below where it was. Now test the movie again.\r\rYou’ll notice that you cannot manipulate the button by moving the moust over it. Instead, you must move your mouse over the blank area several inches below the button in order to interact with it.\r\r\rClose this movie and choose menu option “File/New”.\r\rWith your rectangle tool, create a rectangle on the stage.\r\rSelect frame one on the timeline (this selects everything that’s in frame one, including the rectangle you just made.\r\rHit F8 on the keyboard, and in the dialogue box that opens select “button” and hit “ok”.\r\rYou’ve just created a very basic button. Practice editing it. place different things in each frame and see how it reacts. When you’re done playing around, come back and tell me, and I’ll fill you in on all the rest you need to know. (I need to find some links for you.)
i think that the way you explain is SERIOUSLY the BOMB and i could understand every thing, unlike most ONLINE TUTORIALS.\rthanx youre doing a great Job, and i feel really greatful to you for taking time out to explain some thing in so much EXPLICIT GRAPHIC detail to someone you dont even know!\rTHANX\r\ri also have to tell you that, i am already PARTIALLY aware of all that you have explained, especially the part about creating a button.\ri have made a few AMATUER flash animations and am now working on my own FLASH website.\r\rso please help me with making my BLINKING BUTTONS\rthanx.\r\rand i think with your explanation i already have a VAGUE idea of how to do it, nonetheless, im still waiting for your next post\rTHANX \r
ok cool. I wasn’t sure how advanced you were. \r\rIn the case of a blinking button, or for that matter a button which has any type of animation occure after the press, it is more likely that they are using a button on top of a movie clip, and then they just have the button activate that movie clip.\r\rTry this\rCreate a square of fill on the stage. Select it and hit F8, choose “button” from the dialogue.\rDouble click on the button to edit it in place. Grab frame 1, and drag it to frame 4, so that the “hit” frame is the only thing with anything in it.\r\rThis is what I call an invisible button, or a “blank”, as I often have it labeled in my library.\r\rNow, create an movie clip of anything, edit the movie clip, and using tweens, make it alpha in and out a couple of times.\r\rPlace a stop action in the first frame of this movie clip.\r\rgo back to the main stage and open the instance panel. Select the movie clip, and in your instance panel, give it a name of “myMovieClip”\r\rnow, select your button, and add the following action script attached to it.\r\ron(release){\r myMovieClip.play();\r}\r
oops… that code will only work with Flash 5.0\r\rthe code for 4.0 would look like this\r\ron(release){\r tellTarget (“myMovieClip”) {\r play ();\r }\r}