Another stupid question…so I stuck a sound in my “over” frame for all my buttons, but my sound seems to be lagged…the sound does not go immediately go off when the mouse rolls over the button, rather the mouse has to hover over the button for a bit before the sound turns on. I have the sound properties set to synch: event. I’m thinking maybe this is a consequence of the way I built my buttons? I’ve been trying to tackle the issue of having a button area that is invisible, whereas the text is visible. So far, what I’ve been doing is putting a movie clip inside my button that has two layers: text and background. Text layer holding the obvious, and background holding a shape set to alpha 0% to make it invisible. Is there a better way to build this button? Could this be what is making my button sounds lagged? \r\rOH!!! another thing please…why can’t you change the character spacing in a dynamic text box? Is there any way to do this at all? Or am I stuck to the greyed out box that bars me from making my text clearer? \r\r-V\r\rp.s. I’m almost done with my site!!!
1,000 ways to skin a cat, 1,000 ways to leave your lover, at least 5 to do things in flash.\r\r…for the button the way you want it… put the text on the scene. Create a new button symbol. Put your rectangle, circle, whatever in the new button symbol. alpha = 0. Put the button over your text (on a layer above it)… voila… invisible button independent of the text.\r\rI’ll get back to you on the others… (work gets in the way).
Thanks for the quick reply and your promise to answer the other parts 
…as far as that method of button creation goes…unfortunately that doesn’t let me easily (operative word here) change the color of the text as a rollover state since it’s not technically part of the button, just decoration. The only way around that I guess would be to make the text on the main scene a movie clip and have the mouse event on the button trigger a tint change on the text movie clip (too complex)…which is why I opted for the movie clip inside the button to hold both text and background. There’s method to my madness…the question I have for these differing methods I guess would be: could my button structure be affecting my synch problems for the sounds?
well… it really is hard to say withouth having a look at what you’re building and how it is built. It could be anything. I will make a rather controversial statement: “Flash is really not the best at handling perfectly synched sound events”. \r\rI say “controversial” because some would disagree with me, although Macromedia readily admits it. I, for example, have not experienced these problems, and have seen some Flash projects that seem to work beautifully, but MM and I would say that Director is best suited for pinpoint accuracy of sound and events.\r\rIn conclusion… I really don’t know if your buttons are throwing off your sound. If, for instance, the first time you try your sound is lagging but seems fine thereafter, then it would point to a “loading” problem. You could try loading the file in the new Flash MX style (as in loadig external MP3’s). That is supposed to improve performance/loading time dramatically, although I have not experimented with this feature yet.\r\rI’ll defer to the others on the dynamic text box question, for I havent played with that particular scenario yet. Perhaps tomorrow <yawn>.\r\rGood luck, and don’t forget to show us your site upon completion!
Ok…well thanks for the help…I fooled around with the buttons a bit more, and it seems to be hit or miss, so maybe it’s actually my computer that is causing the lagging. \r\rSo does anyone know if there’s anyway to increase/decrease character spacings in dynamic text boxes? I’ve looked through the actionscrip reference and it doesn’t mention that it CAN’T be done, so I’m a bit confused as to why that option is always greyed out for dynamic boxes…help anyone?