New to flash: creating seperate control box

hi,
im pretty new to flash im primarily a vfx designer for video working in after effects, shake etc

ive designed a gallery for my website but the problem is i need to have the thumbnail based controls in a seperate frame from the image viewer

ive read that action scripts wont do the job and i need to use javascript, is there any decent tutorials out there for this particular thing?

thanks

ady