Buttons dont react when add mask listener...

Question

in the loop of the xml i added all the necessary buttons from the nodes and i drew, added and applied a mask to each container.
the buttons has eventlisteners.
all those working correctly..all working except 1 tiny but essential thing...
for my mask -is a must it has a mouse_out eventlistener or some kind of event, so i can make a function to set a boolean.
myMask.buttonMode = true;
myMask.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, mouseOutMask);
function mouseOutMask (e:Event):void {
trace("masking out");
now when i added this, all my other buttons seems not to work anymore... i get the trace, but my actual buttons is not responding.
the logical why, i can think off is that this myMask movieclip is on top all those buttons if it become to be a listener it act as a whole and overlap all the buttons...
something like that i guess. or i just did something wrong
but is there some kind or any way to make out of the mask a Listener when my mouse is out thati can enable the function i want
without that my buttons below not working anymore??
tnx

Answer 1

Yes, the mask will block mouse access to anything under it as soon as you apply mouse code to it.  Without knowing the true intentions of your wanting to do when you're over that area it's hard to offer a solution, but one way would be to have something under the buttons that has mouse code instead of something over it.  Another possible approach is to keep track of the mouse position using a MOUSE_MOVE listener to trigger a check on where you are on the stage.