Buttons with nested movies clips...

Question

Hi guys
I'm a flash newb. Have just read some tutorials on creating
flash buttons that contain nested movie clips for the different
states. So I went and made 5 of them for my site, all seems great
the rollover effects are just as planned, and I thought I could add
URL link to them in Dreamweaver but thats not working out. Been
googling my *** off to add URL via actionscript (of which I
understand VERY little) , found some code (add the following to key
frame :on(release) {
getURL('
http://www.generic.com',
'_parent');
Major problem is, when I try to add AS to the frame/button,
I'm getting told I 'current selection cannot have actions applied
to it' If I persist and add the script anyway, funnily enough it
doesn't work.
I did an experimental button, consisting of diff coloured
boxes, and AS will apply to that no problem.
I'm tearing my hair out, as I already posted the flash links
on my site and have had to add a note for visitors to use static
links in the interim.
I would love to post the .fla file but I don't see an option
anywhere here to do so.
If some wise soul can help my dumb *** out of this bind it
would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You were using AS2 code, which will not work in AS3. That
particular code is placed on an object, which AS3 does not allow
for, which is why it wouldn't let you... all code in AS3 goes into
timeline frames.
For mouse interctive objects (buttons, movieclips, etc) you
assign event listeners to the object. Let's say your button has an
instance name of "btn", here's a variety of the possible event
listeners avaiable, and I've assigned them to the button....
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, clickHandler);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.DOUBLE_CLICK,
doubleClickHandler);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,
mouseDownHandler);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, mouseOutHandler);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER,
mouseOverHandler);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP, mouseUpHandler);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_WHEEL,
mouseWheelHandler);
All of those "...Handler" things at the end are the names of
functions you create to take action when the listener hears
something it's assigned for... you can name them anything you want,
and here's and example of how the function might look for the CLICK
event...
function clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
trace("clickHandler");
Again, you can name the function anything you want, and the
code within the function can be whatever you need done when the
button is clicked... just be sure to include the argument
"event:MouseEvent" because the listeners throws an argument to the
function and the function needs to expect it. The "event" part of
that is a variable name, so you can name it whatever you like, such
as "e", which is commonly done. The MouseEvent defines the class,
and should be exactly what it is.... a MouseEvent, caps and
all.