FLASH: Setting text fields in a MC as the instance is created

[DeJarnett, Gary]

I’m needing a pop-up keypad for some of my work and wanted to make it a

short Flash movie where each key “unfolded” from the previous key until the

keypad is built.  It’s hard to explain, but I have uploaded calc.fla to

ftp://206.107.180.51/GaryDJ/calc.fla <ftp://206.107.180.51/GaryDJ/calc.fla>

.  Anyone interested in helping out with this question will probably need to

be looking at it to understand.


On the main stage, there is an instance (Calc) of a movie clip

(movOpenCalc).  If you open this movie clip and play it, you’ll see the

“unfolding” effect I’m after.  Each button is an instance (ins1, ins2, etc…)

of the movie clip movCalc.  For example, to see ins1, go to frame 2 in layer

1 after hiding layers above it.  To see where ins2 appears, go to frame 11

after hiding layers above layer 2.   Each button has a variable text field

(txtCalc) which will hold the digit of the number of that keypad button.  It

is initially the number 4, but as each instance is created, I want to move

the real keypad number into that field.  For example, after creating the

first button, I move a 1 to the text field on that instance.  That works

fine.  On all subsequent buttons, though, the number I move to the text

field never gets loaded (see frame 11 of the top layer (named code), it

says, Set Variable: "Calc/ins2:txtCalc" = 2.  This statement is executed in

frame 11, because that is where this instance first appears (while the 3rd

button is “unfolding”).


If anyone can explain why a 2 is not moved into the text field on the second

instance, I would appreciate it.  I’ve studied tell targeting and thought I

had it down, but I must be missing a concept somewhere.  A second question

is why my tell target on the first frame of the timeline of the main movie

is not playing movOpenCalc when I test it.  I have Go to and Play ("Begin")

and Begin is the second frame of the movie clip, so the Stop action in the

first frame should be ignored.  Again, I’m obviously missing something.

Feel free to tell me which part of John’s book I need to reread in order to

get this stuff straight in my head.  If it would help in your explanation,

I’d also be glad for you to replace the broken version with a modified

version at the FTP site.


Thanks for all your help in the past, and for listening to this problem,


Gary (

dejarnettttu [dot] edu

 <

dejarnettttu [dot] edu (mailto:dejarnettttu [dot] edu)

> )


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