Tutorial details:
Written by: Helmut Granda , MX
Time: 15 minutes
Difficulty Level: Intermediate
Requirements: Flash MX, READ THIS TREAD
Topics Covered: How to avoid writing code inside
every single MovieClip and load dynamic content.
Assumed knowledge: Variables, Functions, MovieClips,
Buttons
In our previews tutorial
we learned how we can place our code in one place and assign actions
to severan Movie Clips at once rather than one by one.
and here it is the code to do that:
//initialize your prototypes
MovieClip.prototype.RollOver = function()
{
this.gotoAndPlay(2);
};
MovieClip.prototype.Release = function()
{
this.gotoAndStop(1);
MainMovie.gotoAndPlay(2);
};
MovieClip.prototype.RollOut = function()
{
this.gotoAndStop(1);
ndStop(1);
};
//assign the prototypes to the Masta!
MovieClip.prototype.Allfunctions = function(){
this.onRollOver = RollOver;
this.onRollOut = RollOut;
this.onRelease = Release;
}
//Assign the Masta! code to each one of your Movie Clips
for (var i = 1; i <51;i++){
this["MC"+i].Allfunctions()
}
Now, how about loading dynamic content? In this case I am going to
show you how to load txt files, then you can modify the code to load
swf, jpgs or what ever other information you need in your movie.
The only piece of code we are going to modify is the folowing:
MovieClip.prototype.Release = function()
{
this.gotoAndStop(1);
MainMovie.gotoAndPlay(2);
//this are the 2 lines that we will add to our code
var finalpath = ("text/" + this._name + ".txt").toLowerCase();
loadVariables(finalpath,textHolder);
};
Let me tell you what is going on in the code above with the 2 new lines we
added.
First of all we declare a new variable called finalpath. We assign the values
"text/" that means that all our files will be stored in the folder named text.
After that we attach the name of the MovieClip by using "this._name" the benefit
of fetching the name automaticly is to save us coding time. And finally we
add the extension ".txt" to our variable.
You might be wondering what is the ".toLowerCase()" doing there. Well that
is just to ensure that the files we are looking for are in lower case. In case
we named our MovieClips some thing like MywEIrdNameMovieClip, it will be changed
to myweirdnamemovieclip. That will make it easier for us in naming our files
and folders.
That is it!. Here it is a preview of how the code works like.
wow, You’re the masta! This is one of the clearest , easiest to understand tuts I’ve seen. Very complete and easy to follow, I ‘m finally getting prototypes! {And the presentation (self extracting) is cool.} Thanks!!
Richard