Flash 9 button sound bug? Sound in Over frame plays again when clicked

Question

I've been using Flash for years and I've only just noticed this problem, I guess because I haven't had much call for noisy buttons for a while. In the olden days (FlashMX and earlier) I swear that I could make a button, put a keyframe on the Over frame and attach an Event sound to it, put a keyframe on the Down frame and attach a different Event sound to it and the first sound would ONLY play when the button was rolled over and the second sound would ONLY play when the button was clicked. I just tried doing the same in Flash 9 and when I click on the button, not only does the Down sound play, but the Over sound also plays simultaneously. They're both in the same layer, but the "Over" sound only has its keyframe and the very next keyframe under "Down" is the Down sound.
Switching the sync to Start makes no difference. Synching with Stop on the "Down" frame for the "Over" sound sort of works if there is no Down sound, but there's still a brief snippet of the sound. If I add the Down sound back on new layer, the original problem returns. Of course Streaming doesn't work at all.
This is incredibly maddening, especially since I found this old tutorial on Kirupa that shows exactly what I want, and what I can no longer get in Flash 9, apparently:
http://www.kirupa.com/developer/flash5/buttonsound.htm
I've attached a demo .swf.
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

maijakg,
     You've stumbled onto a good one!  If memory serves me right, the Kirupa article indeed shows how this used to work (Kirupa is always top notch), but this behavior changed in one of the recent versions of Flash Flayer.  Not sure now if it was 8, 9, or what.  It should be easy enough to pinpoint with one of the legacy Flash Players at http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_14266.
     This issue is easy enough to address with ActionScript, which may not be what you want to hear.  Still, it's an option.    I'll go into that in just a minute.  If you want to stick with the button timeline ... well, I'm finding that this proves to be a challenge (and it really shouldn't be).  I notice, for example, that I can create an empty movie clip symbol, put my Over sound in frame 1 of that symbol (Event sound), and then drag that symbol into the Over frame of the button.
     That does keep the audio from repeating when I actually click the button -- that is, when I enter the Down frame -- so that does work.  You can put your Down audio directly into the button's Down frame, but ... using this approach, you'll hear the Over sound when you release the mouse, even if the mouse hasn't left the button.  That's because the movie-clip–with-audio in the Over frame is summoned again when the mouse lifts, and that naturally causes the movie clip in that frame to play its audio again.
     Here's how you can do exactly what you want using ActionScript.
// ActionScript 2.0
var overSound:Sound = new Sound();
overSound.attachSound("sndOver");
var downSound:Sound = new Sound();
downSound.attachSound("sndDown");
btn.onRollOver = overHandler;
btn.onPress = pressHandler;
function overHandler():Void {
    overSound.start();
function pressHandler():Void {
    downSound.start();
     Here's what's going on.  In the first two lines, I've declared a variable -- arbitrarily named overSound -- and set it to an instance of the Sound class.  At this point, the variable overSound contains all the rights and priviledges of a sound object, because that's exactly what it is.  If you look in the Sound class entry of the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference, you'll see that it has an attachSound() method (methods are things an object can do; they're basically verbs).  So in the second line, you'll see that I'm attaching an audio file from the library.  In ActionScript 2.0, this happens by way of a linkage identifier, which you can get to by right-clicking a sound and selecting Properties.  In the dialog box that opens, you'll see an "Export for ActionScript" checkbox.  Select that, and you can type in your identifier, which is just a unique label.  In this case, I used the same name as the variable (sndDown) -- only, the linkage identifier is referenced with quotes.
     In the second pair of lines, the same thing happens, but with a different sound.
     In the third pair of lines, I'm referencing the button symbol by way of an instance name.  To give a button an instance name, select it in the timeline and then look at the Property inspector.  You'll see an "instance name" input field.  Here, my instance name is btn, but you could choose whatever makes sense for that button's purpose.  In these two lines, I'm simply associating the Button.onRollOver event with one custom function (overHandler) and the Button.onPress event with another custom function (pressHandler).  Events are something an object can react to, and you'll see events listed in class entries too.  Because we're dealing with a button simple, the class in question is the Button class.  When a rollover or press occurs ... I want these custom fuctions to be triggered.
     Finally, the last few lines are the definitions for the custom functions.  One, overHandler(), invokes the Sound.start() method on the overSound instance of the Sound class.  The other, downHandler(), does the same for the downSound instance.
     The mechanics of the AS3 version are slightly different, but the principles are the same.  Instead of linkage identifers, AS3 has linkage classes.  When you select that "Export for ActionScript" checkbox in an AS3 document, the identifier input field will be disabled.  You'll enter an identifier-like value into the Class field, and the Base Class field will be filled in for you automatically with flash.media.Sound (just go with the default).  After that, the code goes like this:
// AS3
var overSound:sndOver = new sndOver();
var downSound:Sound = new sndDown();
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, overHandler);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, pressHandler);
function overHandler(evt:MouseEvent):void {
    overSound.play();
function pressHandler(evt:MouseEvent):void {
    downSound.play();
     In this case, you don't need the attachSound() method anymore, because you're invoking the constructor function of each library sound itself (these are linkage classes, remember, and classes create objects directly).  The events are managed the same in princple.  Once again, each mouse event is associated with its corresponding custom function.  In AS3, this happens via the addEventListener() method.
     Finally, the custom functions invoke the Sound.play() method on each Sound instance.  Remember, these are instances of the Sound class, even though their linkage classes are actually sndOver and sndDown:  each of those inherits its functionality from the base class, which is Sound in both cases.  Note that in AS3, the method that starts audio is play(), instead of start().  Just minor differences in syntax.
     Granted, that's a lot to do -- in either version of the language -- just to associate a couple sounds with a button, but off the top of my head, it looks like scripting is the way it has to be done.  If I'm wrong, I'd love to hear about it.  Maybe there's a simpler workaround!
David Stiller
Contributor, How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS4
http://tinyurl.com/dpsCheatFlashCS4
"Luck is the residue of good design."