Advanced photo gallery - need help with MCs

Question

Hello all. I have a photo gallery I am creating that can
contain up to 120 images. Rather than create buttons and movie
clips for each, I am hoping to dynamically build it with 1 movie
clip. But I am having trouble with my code. Here's what I am trying
to do:
Duplicate a movie clip on the stage with an instance name of
e1, giving each successive MC an instance name of e[i+1]
load external images into each movie clip representing images
e1 through e120
set the alpha of the movie clip to 50%
then onRollOver:
Set alpha to 100%, resetting to 50% onRollOut
onPress
assign a variable equal to the image loaded (e1 - e120)
pop up a box and pass the variable into it, which will then
load a larger version of the same image being called from a
different folder.
That being said, here's my flawed code
var i:Number;
for (i = 0; i < 119; i++) {
this.holder.duplicateMovieClip; //duplicates the MC holder
already on the stage
this._name = "e"+i;
this["e"+i]_x = _x + 50;
this["e"+i]._alpha = 50;
this.loadMovie("images/thumbnails/e" + i + ".jpg");
This code is not working on anything other than the first MC.
Here is the code for mouseover functions:
var i:Number;
for (i = 0; i < 119; i++) {
this["e"+i].onRollOver=function() {this["e"+i]._alpha=100};
this["e"+i].onRollOut=function() {this["e"+i]._alpha=50};
this["e"+i].onPress=function() {
_root.myVar = ["e"+i];
_root.myLargeImage.gotoAndPlay(2)
The problem with this section of code is that the dynamically
loaded movie clips do not accept any event commands (onRollOver,
onPress, etc). It is fine before I load external jpegs, but not
noce they are loaded
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thanks

Answer 1

You rollover code doesn't work because you are assigning the
functions
before you load the images. The loaded images remove your
code. You should
not use loadMovie and use the MovieClipLoader class instead.
Then, in its
onLoadInit method you can assign your functions - so that
they are assigned
after the clip is loaded. Also, I'd either just create empty
clips, on the
fly, to load into or attach from the library. And
duplicateMovieClip is not
a property it is a method - calling like you are doing will
not work. If
you'd look in the Help you'll see that duplicateMovieClip can
accept an init
object, and also returns a ref to the new clip... So your
code can be much
simplified:
this.holder.duplicateMovieClip; //duplicates the MC holder
already on the
stage
this._name = "e"+i;
this["e"+i]_x = _x + 50;
this["e"+i]._alpha = 50;
To:
this.holder.duplicateMovieClip("e" + i,
this.getNextHighestDepth(),
{_x:theX, _alpha:50});
And you can't set _x to _x + 50 like that... for one you'd
need to use more
like this._x = this._x + 50 or this._x += 50. But it still
won't work here
since all the new clips are going to be created at x=0. You
need to
increment a variable... or base the spacing on your loop
variable, i - like
i *50.
Dave -
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/