FLASH: A Training Piece

[Rick Koch]

Hi All,


I have what I think could be the basis for very helpful tutorial. 


I wanted a simple menu of several vertically aligned subject buttons.

You click on a subject button and the remaining buttons below it "slide"

downward - or "open up" - to reveal the sub choices under the selected

button. If you choose a different button, the menu "closes back up" and

the new button's sub choices are similarly revealed. It's a pretty

simple concept.


Being a designer (and programming challenged), however, I approached it

as many designers do - manually! trying to account for any and all

selection possibilities.  Now, with only four buttons, that's not a

terribly overwhelming task. But even so, each instance of the same

button needed different actions depending on where it appeared in the

process. I quickly realized that a more likely number of, say ten

buttons, would become a nightmare. And finally, the idea of having the

menu "close up" before it "opened up" a new selection, I decided would

be nearly impossible to do manually - at least in any reasonable amount

of time.


So, here's my proposal.  I'm guessing (hoping, actually) that this menu

idea is a good one for seeing how actionscript can accomplish the same

thing, easier and with less brain damage while teaching some things

along the way. If some of the actionscript gurus on this list would have

the time to take this .fla and "duplicate it" showing all of us the

"scripted way" to accomplish the same thing - that could be a very

helpful thing!


I suspect that setting variables and changing symbols' Y positions, etc

etc. would come into play. If anyone tries to manually account for the

"closing up" of buttons on the MC's timeline, I think they'll quickly

see what I mean about being impossible. Scripting, I would think, could

easily handle it.


Anyway, I, for one, would love to see the before and after of an

everyday type of project like this. It would sure help those of us still

struggling with actionscript to see how scripting would accomplish these

types of tasks.


You can see what I'm talking about and grab the .fla here:


http://www.denverFlash.com/fla/menutrainer.html


Thanks everyone!


Rick.


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