Hi I have made an gallery of images which calls one image at a time in sequence using an XML file. The images display in a movie clip inside the flash.swf file.
The gallery works fine … though there is something that I would like to address from a usabilty standpoint and am hoping that it can done with some simple actionscript.
The gallery has a movie clip in which the images load… and a forward and rewind button to cycle through the images.
The problem is that when the user cycles through the images using the forward button, going from one to the next… and reaches the last image…the forward button is still visible, and causes the user to want to click on it. After a few clicks … without anything happening (because there are no MORE images in the gallery to forward to) the user either assumes that the button is broken or moves on to some other part of the site.
Eventhough there is a counter on the screen indicating which image the user is looking at… ie image 3 of 23… user feedback has been that they rarely look at this to stop cycling through the images … when the forward button in still visible at image 23 of 23.
I am wondering if anyone knows how to actionscript the forward button to both disable it and make it invisible when the user is at the final image.
Here is the actionscript that currently runs the gallery
function loadXML(loaded) {
if (loaded) {
xmlNode = this.firstChild;
image = [];
description = [];
total = xmlNode.childNodes.length;
for (i=0; i<total; i++) {
image* = xmlNode.childNodes*.childNodes[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
description* = xmlNode.childNodes*.childNodes[1].firstChild.nodeValue;
}
firstImage();
} else {
content = “file not loaded!”;
}
}
xmlData = new XML();
xmlData.ignoreWhite = true;
xmlData.onLoad = loadXML;
xmlData.load(“c1.xml”);
/////////////////////////////////////
listen = new Object();
listen.onKeyDown = function() {
if (Key.getCode() == Key.LEFT) {
prevImage();
} else if (Key.getCode() == Key.RIGHT) {
nextImage();
}
};
Key.addListener(listen);
previous_btn.onRelease = function() {
prevImage();
};
next_btn.onRelease = function() {
nextImage();
};
/////////////////////////////////////
p = 0;
this.onEnterFrame = function() {
filesize = picture.getBytesTotal();
loaded = picture.getBytesLoaded();
preloader._visible = true;
if (loaded != filesize) {
preloader.preload_bar._xscale = 100*loaded/filesize;
} else {
preloader._visible = false;
if (picture._alpha<100) {
picture._alpha += 10;
}
}
};
function nextImage() {
if (p<(total-1)) {
p++;
if (loaded == filesize) {
picture._alpha = 0;
picture.loadMovie(image[p], 1);
desc_txt.text = description[p];
picture_num();
}
}
}
function prevImage() {
if (p>0) {
p–;
picture._alpha = 0;
picture.loadMovie(image[p], 1);
desc_txt.text = description[p];
picture_num();
}
}
function firstImage() {
if (loaded == filesize) {
picture._alpha = 0;
picture.loadMovie(image[0], 1);
desc_txt.text = description[0];
picture_num();
}
}
function picture_num() {
current_pos = p+1;
pos_txt.text = current_pos+" / "+total;
}
Thanks in advance.
