Working with a Designers FLA, converting to AS3

[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]Hi all…[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]I am converting a simple WhiteBoard (drawing) application from AS2/1 to AS3, and cannot find an easy way to tell the document class (or otherwise) when certain MovieClip elements on the stage have finished playing. Most of the examples I find seem to assume that no one uses a timeline to animate a GUI anymore, which is frustrating when converting AS1 style gui’s to AS3.[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]Trying to use Class members to reference MoviClip objects on the stage that do not exist when a class instance is created has become a big problem for me at this point.[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]For example, consider a document class “WhiteBoard.as” that has a single child element “main_mc”. This child element has many nested movieclips…some act as buttons and/or menus (with thier own custom classes), but do not actually exist until say, frame 20 of “main_mc” (the container) where they are animated into existence. [/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]I need to set the state of these buttons ONLY when the “main_mc” has loaded completely.[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]My question is this:[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]What is the best way to notify my document class when the “main_mc” has loaded completely?[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]I have tried (or am in the process of trying):[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]1) [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]Creating a custom event that can be broadcast from frame 20 of the container mc, and likewise adding an event listener to the document class to handle the timeline complete event.[/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]2) [/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=black][FONT=Arial]Calling a function from the timeline that resides inside the document class that can handle further initialization of nested mc’s when the animation is complete.[/FONT][/COLOR]