# Why put actions in its own layer...? **URL:** \ **Category:** flash\ **Created:** [July 17, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952 "2003-07-17T23:51:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spirit\_Z3RO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Spirit\_Z3RO](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Spirit_Z3RO)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/1 "2003-07-17T23:51:31Z")
why…? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 11:53pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/2 "2003-07-17T23:53:16Z")
I am confused. be more precise. . . . ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2003, 11:56pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/3 "2003-07-17T23:56:25Z")
Well, in a lot of tutorials, I see AS’s in their own layers, a layer without any elements except for the AS and the layer is usually named “actions”. Why would you do that? What advantages are there to doing that? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 12:00am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/4 "2003-07-18T00:00:25Z")
I think the only advantage of doing that is to keep your timeline organized. When you’re working on a massive project, it’s nice to have all the actions on it’s own layer instead of being scattered all over on the other layers. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 12:58am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/5 "2003-07-18T00:58:07Z")
and whats wrong with organization? =) ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:04am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/6 "2003-07-18T01:04:18Z")
I do the same thing. For instance, if I wanted to make a movieClip with it’s own actions, if a graphic never changes, You can just put it in all of the frames. With the actions, they need to be keyframes and, knowing me, I could screw up the graphic object if I move/add/delete frames of actions on the same layer in the timeline. ![](http://freddythunder.com/test/actionlayer.jpg) (-: ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:05am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/7 "2003-07-18T01:05:28Z")
I put all my stop(); actions on their own layer and the gotoAndPlay’s on another layer. That’s how organized I am. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:24am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/8 "2003-07-18T01:24:44Z")
Another thing is that Director has its own ‘layer’ for handling actions at the top of all the other layers in the timeline. Anyone with a Director background (like me), a MM program which has be around for a while before Flash, will just instinctively throw things in their own layer at the top there. I usually have 3 constant layers in my Flash movies. Border, Actions and Frame Labels… followed by any content layers - with that usually a background layer at the very bottom too. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:31am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/9 "2003-07-18T01:31:52Z")
so all it is is organization? Does it ever change anything or require a change? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/10 "2003-07-18T01:41:19Z")
change anything? not really. Order does matter though. Script in higher layers always get run first. So if you have your code scattered and then decide to switch some layers around, you might inadvertently change the operation order of some scripts screwing you up. Keeping them in one layer makes it easy to find, access and maintain order of. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/11 "2003-07-18T01:46:29Z")
ahhhh, I C o\_O thank you all. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 10:18am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/why-put-actions-in-its-own-layer/25952/12 "2003-07-18T10:18:19Z")
> \*Originally posted by senocular \* > \*\*I usually have 3 constant layers in my Flash movies. Border, Actions and Frame Labels… followed by any content layers - with that usually a background layer at the very bottom too. > 🙂 \*\* > I do the same exactly 🙂 Actually, I’ve recently split my code layer into 3: one for the variables init, one for the functions, and one for the function calls… :crazy: