Access Button contained in a movie clip

Question

This is for beginners or those not familiar or having
diffculty with getting embedded buttons to work.
This is a how to on using actionscript in your main time line
that listens for events for button(s) located inside of a
movieclip.
I spent hours trying to figure out why I could not access my
button that was inside of a movie clip from the main ROOT or
_level0 of my scene. When I placed the AS inside the movieclip that
the button was inside of, the button worked but when I put the same
code, no changes, on the main timeline nothing happened.
myMovie_mc.myButton_btn.onRelease = function() {
trace("The Button Works!");
Your can also use onPress, onRollOver or any of the button
actions you would if you created the AS on the button itself.
myMovie_mc.myButton_btn.onRelease = function() {
function() part of the code can also be function():Void
First you tell flash where the button is located. Starting
from the main timeline you start with the name of the movie. This
is where I had trouble and why my buttons did not work. This part
of the code is the INSTANCE name NOT the label you named the movie
that displays in the library.
CREATE AN INSTANCE NAME on the movie clip. Select the movie,
in the properties bar you will see a field where you place the
instance name. I always end the name with _mc, or _btn to tell me
that it is a movie or a button so when I go back through the AS I
know what that object is that is being referenced.
myMovie_mc <-- This is the INSTANCE NAME of the movie clip
myButton_btn <-- This is the name of the button INSTANCE
NAME that resides inside the myMovie_mc movie clip
onRelease <-- This is the event listened for, it could
also be onPress, onRollOver or any other button events
= function() <-- This is needed and tells flash that this
code is treated as a function so that when the event happens, in
this case onRelease, the code inside the { } is executed. This
could also be = function():Void
All the parts before the set to symbol or the = sign needs to
be seperated with a period, though NOT between the event listened
for and the set to symbol or = sign.
myMovie_mc.myButton_btn.onRelease = function():Void
Put your code here that you want performed when button is
Released...
The reason my code didn't work was because I did not give an
instance name to the movie clip. You must give instance names to
ANYTHING you call within AS code. Including buttons, MC's, symbols
etc... or else nothing will happen.
Now, if you are having same problem I had, the AS worked on
the same time line level as the button was on but NOT when placed
in parent or main time line, you now know how to fix it.
This works in AS2, Flash8 and Flash9. I don't have AS3 yet
but the code should work in AS3 also.
Hope this helps someone, I searched for this info in the
forums and could NOT find it. I stumbled upon my error after many
hours of trial and error. So next time if I have this problem
again, a forum search will bring this post up in the results. LOL
Thanks.

Answer 1

Nice post. One small addition to this is that you can also
just specify a function name instead of using "=function() {".
For example:
myMovie_mc.myButton_btn.onRelease = myFunction;
function myFunction():Void
Put your code here that you want performed when button is
Released...
This could be used in a couple of ways. First, the way you
mentioned in your post. Second, you can use this method to have the
program simulate a button press (even if the user does not click on
the button). Since the function will execute even if you just call
it like: myFunction();
Just my 2 cents.
Tim