Mouseover to Start Movie

[MedHead]

I have a project that was given to me, and I have nearly no understanding of Flash. I've been browsing the Web looking for an answer, and have had little success.

The project seems simple, but it's proving to be difficult for me to figure out how to complete. Here's the timeline:

1. Introduction screen. Requests user to mouse over the Flash file to begin the presentation.
2. Slideshow starts. Each slide needs a mouse click to continue to the next slide.
3. Slideshow ends. "Thank You" animation begins.
4. Animation ends. Replay button appears, which if clicked, would return the user to the start of the slideshow on step 2.

I've laid out the timeline of events, tweened animations, and gotten everything to display the way I want it to, but I can't get the ActionScript to work the way I want it to. I've gotten the mouseover event to work to begin the slideshow, but the video just ends up looping continually. I can't seem to get it to stop to listen for a mouse click. Even stop(); does nothing.

The way I got the mouseover to work was by putting an action layer with stop(); associated with a keyframe, and then put a new layer with an invisible button with on(rollover) { gotoAndPlay ("intro") } applied to the button.

Would someone please help me figure out what I'm doing wrong? This is really starting to frustrate me. Please let me know if I'm lacking any information, and I will try to provide it. Thank you!

[gnomeontherun]

Can you post the code or the file? It would be helpful to see all of the relevant code to go with your description.

Also welcome to the forums!

[MedHead]

Thank you for your help. Here is the URL to the file in its current state.

http://volunteer.persecution.com/assets/sudanflash.fla

The typo in the first story has been fixed, but I wasn't able to get to the computer with Flash on it to be able to adjust the .fla file. Also, the file in its current form stops at the first story (I finally got it to stop - it just won't do anything after that), when there is actually two other stories after it.

Thank you again for your reply. This is my first thread on these forums, but as you can see from my registration date, I've been lurking for some time. The forum has been a help for me in the past.

[gnomeontherun]

It seems to work for me, at least as I understand it should. Could you reexplain what your issue is now?

May I suggest removing the rollover buttons and using click buttons? I found it a little difficult to use if I accidentally rolled across before I could read it. Perhaps this would make the Flash work better? Also some of the fades are a bit long (in my opinion) which I think makes it harder to keep attention.

Then you could setup three buttons for each of the stories and they could gotoAndPlay("story1"); for each. The graphics are very nice by the way.

[MedHead]

It seems to work for me, at least as I understand it should. Could you reexplain what your issue is now?

Let me try to remember everything - it's been a day now, and I've made many revisions. When I first set up the clip, I had the first slide's mouseover working, but when I tried to copy what I did for the Damare slide, the clip ignored the stop command, didn't look for an additional mouseover, and continued looping the clip. Giving up on that (the intention was to have the user click the mouse to skip to the next slide, anyway), I tried to set up a button to go to and play the next frame: at the moment, I can't get the button to respond. It just sits at the Damare frame forever. So, either it doesn't work past the initial rollover, as the problem currently stands; or it doesn't stop looping, as I noticed when I tried making everything change via a rollover.

It makes me worry that I coded something wrong with the rollover, or that I don't know how rollovers work. I wanted to know if there was a way to have the clip start looking for another rollover, since it appears to be a "one rollover = always a rollover" sort of setting for my clip at the moment, or if perhaps my poor coding of the rollover meant all other user interactions were going to be ignored.

May I suggest removing the rollover buttons and using click buttons? I found it a little difficult to use if I accidentally rolled across before I could read it. Perhaps this would make the Flash work better? Also some of the fades are a bit long (in my opinion) which I think makes it harder to keep attention.

I agree about the fades. I'm going to change those soon. As for the rollover, it wasn't my idea, but was a requirement set by my supervisor. The goal is to have the story slides advance with a button click, but that's what's not working for me at the moment.

Then you could setup three buttons for each of the stories and they could gotoAndPlay("story1"); for each. The graphics are very nice by the way.

Well, that's the current plan, and that's what I was hoping to set up, but neither a mouseover or button work to make the slide progress from Damare to the next. It either loops continuously, even ignoring the stop command that initially worked for the mouseover slide, or stops and ignores all interaction from the user as it does in its current form.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense. It's somewhat noisy in the office today, and making it hard to think, heh.

[gnomeontherun]

Here is the button code that works

on (release) {
// you could use on (rollover) too
gotoAndPlay("damare")
}

I think you are having your gotoAndPlay() go to the wrong places. For instance, the label, 'intro' is the frame after your stop(); code. This is why it loops. Also you can use the code

gotoAndStop("intro");

instead if you want to make sure it stops. Your labels are in slightly off location, so those are what you should adjust to make sure the label is where the button should take you directly afterword clicking.

[MedHead]

Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it.

[gnomeontherun]

You're welcome. If you have other questions just post them here!