Timer issue

[Spykes]

I have a news rotator that is populated from an RSS feed. The rotator has a timer that cycles through the news items, displaying a link and image and title for each item. I have the put in three buttons for the user to control the item that is displaying. A pause, forward and backward button.

My issue is that I’m not sure how to implement the button without messing up my timer that is already running. I was able to do the Pause button, which was simply to stop the timer. The forward and backward buttons are a bit more tricky. Any ideas?

This is what I have so far. Note that I have much of the code duplicated because I needed to initialize the objects for the first timer index. After the first item, the code runs from the timerHandler() function.

var xmlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
var xmlData:XML = new XML();
import fl.transitions.Tween;
import fl.transitions.easing.*;
import fl.transitions.TweenEvent;

xmlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, LoadXML);
xmlLoader.load(new URLRequest("RSS.xml"));

function LoadXML(e:Event):void {
    xmlData = new XML(e.target.data);
    xmlLoader.removeEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, LoadXML);
    ParseNews(xmlData);
}

function ParseNews(newsInput:XML):void{
    
    var NumItems:int = newsInput.*.item.length();
    var i:int=0;
    var xmlItem = newsInput.channel.item*;
    var NewsBox:MovieClip = new NewsItem();
    var ImageLoader:Loader;
    var dstring:String = xmlItem.pubDate;
    /// split the array on spaces:
    var ar:Array = dstring.split(" ");
    var parsedDate:String = ar[2]+" "+ar[1];
    addChild(NewsBox);
    NewsBox.organization.htmlText = xmlItem.organization;
    NewsBox.title.htmlText = "<b>"+xmlItem.title+"</b>";
    NewsBox.description.addEventListener(TextEvent.LINK, textFieldLinkHandler); 
    NewsBox.description.htmlText = "<b>"+parsedDate+" - </b>"+xmlItem.description.toString()+"<a href='event:"+xmlItem.link+"'>  <b><font color='#ecb510'> More>> </font></b></a>";
    NewsBox.itemCount.htmlText = (i+1) + " of " + NumItems;
    NewsBox.x = 200;
    NewsBox.y = 60;
    var url:String = xmlItem.image;
    var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
    ImageLoader = new Loader();
    ImageLoader.load(urlRequest);
    var imageIn:Tween = new Tween(ImageLoader, "alpha", Strong.easeInOut, 0, 1, .5, true);
    addChild(ImageLoader);
    ImageLoader.x = 10;
    ImageLoader.y = 30;
    if (i < 3)
        {i++;}
    else {i=0;}
    
    var itemTimer:Timer = new Timer(7000);
    itemTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, timerHandler);
    itemTimer.start();
    
    pause.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, stopTimer);
    right.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, Forward);
    left.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, Backward);
    
    function timerHandler(e:TimerEvent):void 
    {
        removeChild(ImageLoader);
        xmlItem = newsInput.channel.item*;
        dstring = xmlItem.pubDate;
        ar = dstring.split(" ");
        parsedDate = ar[2]+" "+ar[1];
        NewsBox.organization.htmlText = xmlItem.organization;
        NewsBox.title.htmlText = "<b>"+xmlItem.title+"</b>";
        NewsBox.description.addEventListener(TextEvent.LINK, textFieldLinkHandler); 
        NewsBox.description.htmlText = "<b>"+parsedDate+" - </b>"+xmlItem.description.toString()+"<a href='event:"+xmlItem.link+"'><b><font color='#ecb510'>   More>> </font></b></a>";
        NewsBox.itemCount.htmlText = (i+1) + " of " + NumItems;
        var url:String = xmlItem.image;
        var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
        ImageLoader = new Loader();
        ImageLoader.load(urlRequest);
        var imageIn:Tween = new Tween(ImageLoader, "alpha", Strong.easeInOut, 0, 1, .5, true);
        addChild(ImageLoader);
        ImageLoader.x = 10;
        ImageLoader.y = 30;
        if (i < 3)
            {i++;}
        else {i=0;}
    }
    
    function textFieldLinkHandler(e:TextEvent):void 
    {
         var passed:String = String(e.text);
         trace(passed);
         navigateToURL(new URLRequest(passed), "_blank");
    }
    
    function stopTimer(e:MouseEvent)
    {
        itemTimer.stop();
    }
    
    function Forward(e:MouseEvent)
    {
        //need code here to control timer and items
    }
    
    function Backward(e:MouseEvent)
    {
        //need code here to control timer and items
    }
}

Thanks for any help