Child .swf controlling parent timeline

Hello Captivate Heroes,
I've searched around, and can't seem to find any solid info on an issue my team is having. I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to Javascript, so I apologize if this question is too basic for this forum.
Is it possible for an embedded .swf (created in Captivate) to control the main timeline in a parent .swf? Consider the example below:
1) This window is an embedded .swf (another captivate file, which I’ll refer to as the “child”) that has an interactive walkthrough. It loads and begins playing immediately. I want users to complete this module and all interactions in it before continuing to the next slide in the “parent” file. Essentially, I want either the child or the parent timeline to play, but never both at the same time.
2) This is our normal continue button, and I don’t want it appearing until 1 has been completed.
My solution was to add a javascript call on the first slide of the child file that tells the parent file to pause its timeline (something like _root.rdcmdPause=1;). Then, do the opposite on the last child slide ( _root.rdcmdResume=1;). In this way, the parent slide would essentially pause on its first frame (which doesn’t have an active continue button) while the child animation continues to play. However, this isn’t working. It’s been a really long time since I’ve scripted, so I’m very rusty. Is that the proper way to manipulate parent variables in a child file? Do you have any other ideas on how to accomplish this task?
I have a backup solution -- providing a "password" at the end of the child animation, which users can use to unlock the continue button. I'd rather use a more graceful solution
Thank you in advance,
Jamie

Hi Jamie,
I don't think JavaScript is going to help you here. You need to be doing this in ActionScript 3.
For the non-scripting part, you can control the Captivate movie using system variables. To pause the main slide, you could assign rdcmdPause=1 on the Slide Entry action. You may want to adjust the slide transition to none so that it won't look faded out when it pauses the movie. You can also show/hide items on the slide using the timeline, but it sounds like you won't really know when the Learner will be done with the interactive child .swf.
From what you described, it sounds like the Child .swf (#1) needs to communicate with other objects on the slide... mainly the continue button (#2). In order to do that you'll most likely need to make the child .swf #1 into a widget so that it can communicate with the main movie and other objects on the slide. I would suggest 3 possibilities:
1. Learn to use a widget framework such as Widget Factory or CpGears to make this possible
2. Take a look at the Infosemantics Event Handler Widget. Not sure if it will meet all your needs, but it's worth a look.
3. Hire a Captivate Widget Developer to make this possible... and yes I am a Widget Developer (shameless plug )
Hope that helps,
Jim Leichliter

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Problems accessing child swf from parent class

First off: Hi. I'm new - to the forum and to Flash.
I'm currently writing a flash app that requests a XML feed
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the stage based on the settings/URL details received from the XML
feed.
Its nearly there and I've got my head round a couple of weird
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pseudo code:
Note the Panel class is not linked to a symbol and uses
composition to act like a movie clip, rather than inheritance.
quote:
class Panel{
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quote:
var key:String = "test";
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(Couldn't find the code tag/button...)

>>trace(panelMove.keyTest()); = (Nothing returned)
You have panelMove here instead of panelMovie
Dave -
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/

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For instance, in the below code a parent can control a SWF
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Hi clbeech
I simplified the code to simply get the swf child controlling
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quote:
“1061: Call to a possibly undefined method
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package
import flash.display.MovieClip;
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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import flash.display.Loader;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
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Perfect....just to make sure i m taking care of it in a nice practical way....here is how i learned to access a file located in Child (researching other posts)
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Parent/child swf files

Hello,
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Hello,
I'm working on loading external swf files for ios. I am able to load the swf files and set them to visible or invisible in different frames. I am having trouble controlling the loaded swf files from the main timeline. Specifically, I would like to have a button on the main timeline, that when clicked will move a loaded swf to frame 1.
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myLoader1.visible = true;
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sure.
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Child .swf controlling parent timeline

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