# Loading text from external .txt

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/loading-text-from-external-txt/185393>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [April 12, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/loading-text-from-external-txt/185393 "2006-04-12T23:51:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![scopa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@scopa](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/scopa)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/loading-text-from-external-txt/185393/1 "2006-04-12T23:51:17Z")

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Hey all, im still new to actionscript, so please bear with me.

I followed the dynamic text tutorial on this site, and it worked perfect in my test .fla, however it isn’t working in my actual implementation…

Basically, I have a movieclip that is several layers deep into the movie that I want to load the text, but for some reason its not loading…

I take the same movie clip, and I put it on the main stage and it works just fine.

So somehow the placement of the MC in the flash movie is screwing the linking… any idea how I fix this?

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**Author:** ![matthewjumps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/49beb7/32.png) [@matthewjumps](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/matthewjumps)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 12:59am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/loading-text-from-external-txt/185393/2 "2006-04-13T00:59:51Z")

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its probably not that - its probably the referencing that you are getting wrong…referencing stuff is always a cause of problems…

test your movie then go to the Debug menu and pick “List Variables” - chances are your text files variables are in there somewhere - do a Ctrl-F to search for them if you have to…

theres no reason why it shouldnt work if your inside several movie clips.

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**Author:** ![scopa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@scopa](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/scopa)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 4:02am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/loading-text-from-external-txt/185393/3 "2006-04-13T04:02:19Z")

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> [@matthewjumps](#):
>
> its probably not that - its probably the referencing that you are getting wrong…referencing stuff is always a cause of problems…
> 
> test your movie then go to the Debug menu and pick “List Variables” - chances are your text files variables are in there somewhere - do a Ctrl-F to search for them if you have to…
> 
> theres no reason why it shouldnt work if your inside several movie clips.

Ok, I think I found the problem… and it doesn’t make ANY sense (to me at least)

The basic structure is this:  
Stage\>MC1\>MC2 (with two layers, one is acting as a layermask)\>MC3\>TextBoxes

If I delete the layer mask, suddenly it all works!

But I need the mask…

so any ideas?

Thanks

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**Author:** ![Macaroni\_Ted](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@Macaroni\_Ted](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Macaroni_Ted)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 4:14am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/loading-text-from-external-txt/185393/4 "2006-04-13T04:14:14Z")

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it sounds like u have set the mask mannually…  
if you want to mask dynamic Text you have to set the mask dynamically  
eg

myTextLayer.setMask(maskLayer)

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**Author:** ![scopa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@scopa](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/scopa)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 6:14am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/loading-text-from-external-txt/185393/5 "2006-04-13T06:14:13Z")

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aha! The setMask worked!

I have a whole new set of issues I need to figure out, but this helped a ton! Thank you!