Help with XML nav

1

Hi :slight_smile: I’m trying to build an xml navigation which will at this point only work for a specific site’s purposes but in the future I want to expand and make something available for everyone which is fully customizable… This is half business / half hobby because this is the first time I’m working with XML and Flash.

I’m having trouble making the movie clips buttons dynamically. I would like to build the buttons in the second frame of my clip, but I cant seem to get an array from the function and well, check out the code and I’ll explain more at the bottom:


function loadXML(loaded) {
	if (loaded) {
		//find out how many main categories there are
		_global.CatsNum = this.firstChild.childNodes[0].childNodes.length;
		//refers to categories
		//declare new array for holding main categories
		var mainCats:Array = new Array();
		//set font style for menu options
		var mainMenuFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
		mainMenuFormat.font = "Futura Lt Bt";
		mainMenuFormat.size = 12;
		mainMenuFormat.bold = true;
		mainMenuFormat.color = 0xFFFFFF;
		x = 10;
		tx = 10;
		newXbg = Stage.width;
		newXmenu = Stage.width-10;
		bgLevel = 49;
		//add all main categories names to array
		for (i=0; i<CatsNum; i++) {
			mainCats.push(this.firstChild.childNodes[0].childNodes*.childNodes[0].firstChild.nodeValue);
		}
		mainCats.reverse();
		//create text fields
		for (i=0; i<CatsNum; i++) {
			_root.createTextField("mainCat"+i, i+50, x, 0, 200, 20);
			eval('mainCat'+i).text = mainCats*.toUpperCase();
			eval('mainCat'+i).autoSize = "left";
			eval('mainCat'+i).setTextFormat(mainMenuFormat);
			eval('mainCat'+i).selectable = false;
			eval('mainCat'+i).embedFonts = true;
			tx += eval('mainCat'+i)._width+20;
			x = tx;
			//Right Align Menu Text
			eval('mainCat'+i)._x = newXmenu-eval('mainCat'+i)._width;
			newXmenu -= eval('mainCat'+i)._width+20;
			//fills background color
			if (i%2 == 0) {
				this.menu_bg_color = 0xF23030;
			} else {
				this.menu_bg_color = 0x572600;
			}
			createEmptyMovieClip('menu_bg_pen'+i, bgLevel);
			eval('menu_bg_pen'+i).moveTo((eval('mainCat'+i)._x-10), 0);
			eval('menu_bg_pen'+i).beginFill(this.menu_bg_color, 100);
			eval('menu_bg_pen'+i).lineTo(((eval('mainCat'+i)._width+eval('mainCat'+i)._x)+10), 0);
			eval('menu_bg_pen'+i).lineTo(((eval('mainCat'+i)._width+eval('mainCat'+i)._x)+10), 20);
			eval('menu_bg_pen'+i).lineTo((eval('mainCat'+i)._x-10), 20);
			eval('menu_bg_pen'+i).lineTo((eval('mainCat'+i)._x-10), 0);
			eval('menu_bg_pen'+i).endFill();
			bgLevel -= 1;
		}
		/*onEnterFrame = function(){
						//trace(CatsNum);
						for (i=0; i<CatsNum; i++){
							eval ('menu_bg_pen'+i).onRollOver = function(){
								eval ('menu_bg_pen'+i)._alpha = 50;
								trace("over"+i);
							}
							eval ('menu_bg_pen'+i).onRollOut = function(){
								eval ('menu_bg_pen'+i)._alpha = 100;
								trace("out"+i);
							}
							//trace(i);
						}
					}*/
	} else {
		//trace("file not loaded!");
	}
	
}
xmlData = new XML();
xmlData.ignoreWhite = true;
xmlData.onLoad = loadXML;
xmlData.load("collection.xml");

So that builds the navigation fine, aligned to the right of the stage, just how I want it, but my main problem is returning the array mainCats. I would like to use this array in Frame 2 of my movie, but for some reason it returns as undefined even if I declare it as global!

Any help, suggestions, comments are greatly appreciated :slight_smile: