Telltarget

I can’t seem to telltarget a movie clip from within the same movie clip :frowning:

everything is ok when it isn’t in a movie clip (just in a flash movie), but once i embed everything into a movie clip symbol the problem of not being able to find the target shows up.

is it possible to telltarget a movieclip that’s in another movieclip from within the same movieclip?

There is no issue with targeting any clip from anywhere, as far as I’ve found

_root contains clipA
clipA contains clipB and clipC
clipC contains clipD

A communicates with B

clipB.play();

B communicates with A

_parent.gotoAndPlay("somePlaceCool");
_parent._parent.clipA.gotoAndStop(22);

B communicates with C

_root.clipA.clipC.gotoAndPlay(1);
_parent.clipC._visible=false;
_parent._parent.clipA.clipC.gotoAndPlay(5);

D communicates with A

_root.stop();

D communicates with B

_root.clipB.play();
_parent._parent._parent.clipB.alpha+=10;

I’m not sure if you’re still using Flash 4.0 “tellTarget(){}” method syntax… if you are then you’ll need to use that crappy old slash syntax. If that’s what the problem is, I can’t help you. I never was any good with that system of addressing things.

Now keep this in mind. If you are loading a movie into a level or into a movie clip… all of it’s clips will now consider their parent to be a movie clip and not the _root. This will change any of your _parent or _root calls. You just have to plan for that.

I don’t know if this has helped you… but it’s a good basic list to have up for the newbies to refer to.

oh… there is one more thing to note. Script which is placed on the outside of movie clips. ie the onClipEvent(){} scripts. Are considered to be being called from inside the clip. Same thing with variables. If you send a variable in a movie clip to be equal to something, any script that’s attached to it, will be able to access that variable localy.

This means that if you have a _parent notation in an onClipEvent() then it will be refering to the clip that contains the clip with the code.

that seems obvious, but I never know what other’s may or may not have picked up on.

So there it is. I use these methods and I never seem to have a problem with movie clip calls.

thx for trying…i’m using Flash 5.0

the error:
Target not found: Target="/scrollleft1" Base="_level0.instance3.instance5"

the code in which calls for “scrollleft1”

on (press) {
tellTarget ("/scrollleft") {
play ();
}
}

like i said, it all works fine until i put it all into a movie clip symbol…:-\

see… don’t use that syntax… just to start.

on (press) {
scrollleft.play ();
}

this works just as well, (or in your case, just a badly :wink: ) and is less script to write. As long as you’re using 5.0, you might as well use this code.

now to trouble shoot.

FIRST THING to do whenever you’re trouble shooting flash is to ensure that the instance name “held”. With the “instance” panel open, click on the movie clip in question and make sure that the name “scrollleft” is located in the text field in that panel. INSTANCE names are NOT the same as library reference names. You cannot use this code unless the movie clip being called has an instance name.
I find that often I will enter an instance name then go do something else, and when I return the instance name is not in that text field. I don’t know why this happens, but it has made me wary to check instance names of clips FIRST before any other trouble shooting.

Lets say that the button that this script is attached to is located in a movie clip. This code will only work if the movie clip called “scrollleft” is located on the same timeline as the button with the script.

If this button is contained within a movie clip, and the movie clip called “scrollleft” is located in the main timeline then the code should be this

on (press) {
_root.scrollleft.play ();
}

Couple of points to remember when using tellTarget()…

Always make sure that you name every movie you place on the stage, and keep a list of them somewhere if there are a lot of them. The number of times I’ve forgotton to label or got the names of the things wrong is frightening.

If you can’t seem to target a clip, you can always flip to Normal mode, click on your tellTarget command and use the little targetting icon to bring up a list of every movie clip you can target. Then it’s just a matter of selecting the right one.

yeah… I was going to mention the “movie explorer” panel as well, but couldn’t figure out how to discribe it. Basicaly though it does contain all the objects in your FLA and their addresses inside the movie.