Giving things instance names. Flash cs4

Ive been using adobe flash cs4 for a while now and have had little trouble giving things instance names. Now though, whenever i double click on something like i normally do to give it an instance name, the blue box no longer comes around it, i click on properties, and change the instance name. I now get a dashed line along the lines of the picture. and when i go to properties, it just says shape, and I cant edit the instance name. Just position and size, then the fill and stroke. What is going on?

You do not assign instance names to objects in the library. Instance names are assigned to object on the stage. Instance names are unique for each item on the stage.... meaning the same library object can be used multiple times... each instance of it will have a different name. If you want to assign a name you do it either by manually entering it in the properties panel or thru actionscript code when the object is added to the movie.

Similar Messages

Re: Separate 'instance names' for CS4 Pro.

I want to have serveral different words to appear on my stage with their own buttons. What is a good solution for this program? Here is my code for your review.
Process.visible = false;
Cycles.visible = false;
stop();
function playMovie(event:MouseEvent):void
play();
startButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,playMovie);
var paused:Boolean = false;
function myPauseFunction():void{
     if(paused) {
          play();
          paused = true;
     else {
          stop();
          paused = false;
import flash.events.Event;
btn_show_process.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, showText);
btn_hide_process.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, hideText);
btn_show_cycles.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, showText);
btn_hide_cycles.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, hideText);
function showText(event:Event):void {
          Process.visible = true;
          Cycles.visible = true;
function hideText(event:Event):void {
          Process.visible = false;
          Cycles.visible = false;

Do you understand any of the code you are showing and how any of it relates to your question? You should explain your code if so. If your several words are contained in the movieclips named Process and Cycles, then this portion of your code will make them all appear and disappear depending on which of the 4 buttons you click.
btn_show_process.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, showText);
btn_hide_process.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, hideText);
btn_show_cycles.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, showText);
btn_hide_cycles.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, hideText);
function showText(event:Event):void {
          Process.visible = true;
          Cycles.visible = true;
function hideText(event:Event):void {
          Process.visible = false;
          Cycles.visible = false;
If your intention is to show them separately, then your code is not doing that. That code would be more like....
btn_show_process.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, showProcessText);
btn_hide_process.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, hideProcessText);
function showProcessText(event:Event):void {
          Process.visible = true;
function hideProcessText(event:Event):void {
          Process.visible = false;
btn_show_cycles.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, showCyclesText);
btn_hide_cycles.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, hideCyclesText);
function showCyclesText(event:Event):void {
          Cycles.visible = true;
function hideCyclesText(event:Event):void {
          Cycles.visible = false;

Flash CS4 crashing when scrubbing playhead or using certain tools

I am currently having the unfortunate experience of learning Flash Pro as part of my degree program at school. I have been having a problem with the program crashing repeatedly. I have CS4 Web Premium, an educational discount edition, and am using it on an HP pc with an AMD Athlon and Nvidia v-card. I have had problems with it crashing on this computer when using tools such as the deco-tool and sometimes when transforming something. The real problem is when I try to use one of the Dell pc's at school to work on a file I have created at home on the HP. On 4 different machines at school Flash will crash when working on one of these files, especially when scrubbing the playhead on the timeline. The program will crash over and over, to the point where I can't really work on these files at school, which is a huge waste of time. I have heard of problems with corrupt fonts, and restoring preference files but also wanted to see if these problems sound familiar to anyone.

Thanks for your reply. I have the 10.0.2 Flash update on my pc, I'm not sure about the machines at school but I'm guessing they do as well. I also have 6gb of ram, and am running 64bit windows7. The pc's at school are new Dell's running widows7 and I would think they have at least 4gb of ram. I've attached a file that crashed when I scrubbed the playhead on the pc's at school. I don't have that problem at home. Thanks again for your help.
Dan
jdehaan <[email protected]> wrote:
I would check a couple things - whether the Flash CS4 installations (the ones that crash) have been updated to 10.0.2, and secondly what the machine specs are (how much RAM). There were a number of issues (including crashing while scrubbing) that were worked on at great length for the updater. If the updater has been installed and the machines have more than 2 gigs of ram, it would be great if you could link to a file that crashes while scrubbing so I can take a look.
Thanks.
>

Flash CS4 Crashing when testing movie

I am running into Flash CS 4 Professional crashing when I
test (ctrl + enter) or publish my movie. The final swf file turns
out corrupted as well. How do I fix this problem?? I am using Flash
Player 10.

Thanks for your reply. I have the 10.0.2 Flash update on my pc, I'm not sure about the machines at school but I'm guessing they do as well. I also have 6gb of ram, and am running 64bit windows7. The pc's at school are new Dell's running widows7 and I would think they have at least 4gb of ram. I've attached a file that crashed when I scrubbed the playhead on the pc's at school. I don't have that problem at home. Thanks again for your help.
Dan
jdehaan <[email protected]> wrote:
I would check a couple things - whether the Flash CS4 installations (the ones that crash) have been updated to 10.0.2, and secondly what the machine specs are (how much RAM). There were a number of issues (including crashing while scrubbing) that were worked on at great length for the updater. If the updater has been installed and the machines have more than 2 gigs of ram, it would be great if you could link to a file that crashes while scrubbing so I can take a look.
Thanks.
>

Flash CS4 - Slide presentation - instance name question

Is it possible to rename slides dynamically in a Flash presentation that is created using the Flash Slide Presentation template in Flash CS4. So, if I have a presentation with 50 slides and they are named 001 to 050 and I need to insert a slide between slide 010 and 011 is there a way to have Flash renumber them or do I have to just manually rename.

You might do better to use an array to manage the ordering of things--storing references to the slides in the array. That way you don't have to be chasing names to make them follow some scheme. You can still use names to help define where things go brain-wise, but having them listed in an array allows you to slip in new things without having to rename anything... just use the array/index to target the objects rather than the actual names.

General Question About common Instance Names in Flash CS4 (AS3)

I tried something interesting recently. I had code effecting an object with the instance name : object_mc.
Now I added another object and gave it the same instance name.
The result was, that the code only effected the most recent added object (no error).
Is there a way in flash to have multiple objects with the same instance name all being affected by one piece of code?
~ Thanks for any thoughts, advice or facts. ~

Advice: avoid it... if you want to control different instances, give them different instance names.
It depends on what you mean by "one piece of code". Directly using the instance name to target the movieclips will work as you have seen already... Last one added gets the attention.
To use the instance name to take action is doable more along the lines of testing each movie to see if it has the name, but still, you would have to target each using a different means.
For the piece of code below I have some number of objects on the stage and I test to see if they have an instance name assigned (object_mc) that is shared by some of them, and I am able to move them if they do, but I cannot use the instance name to target each of them for action... in this case I use the getChildAt method.
for(var i=0; i<this.numChildren; i++){
if(this.getChildAt(i).name == "object_mc"){
this.getChildAt(i).x += 200;
object_mc.x += 25; // only moves the last object added

Flash CC HTML5 Get instance names on click?

I make escape games and often have lots of items in a scene each with flash instance names that on mouse over or mouse click make some event happen or some text is displayed.
I'm using Flash CC and HTML 5 output and cannot get it to output the instance names in the log, is this not possible? Can anyone suggest an alternative method of responding to lots of movieclips/buttons etc
Here's my test code:-
//stage.enableMouseOver(24);
var clicked = "";
var clickedname = "";
//NEED TO FIND OUT MOVIECLIP INSTANCE NAME??
var key1 = exportRoot.key1
//key1.name = "key1"
//console.log(key1ref.name)
stage.on("click", function (evt) {
    //clickedname = stage.getObjectUnderPoint(evt.stageX, evt.stageY)
    //clicked = evt.target
    clicked = evt.target
    console.log(clicked)
    //output result to log
    /*if (clicked == "key1"){
        console.log("clicked key 1")

Thanks Ned, I really appreciate the help as I've been stuck on this seemingly obvious thing for a few days now and can't progress until I can figure it out...
Basically using currentTarget it outputs this:-
a {id: 24, _matrix: a, _rectangle: a, children: Array[1], canvas: canvas#canvas…}
so comparing it to a name/instance name is not going to work ;-)
using evt.target gets me this:-
lib.key1 {id: 21, _matrix: a, _rectangle: a, image: img, x: -40…}
so again useless, a reference to the key1.png in the library but not to the named instances placed on the stage!!
Am I assigning the instance name correctly??
var key1 = exportRoot.key1
key1.name = "key1"
Any help from anyone appreciated!!

Flash CS4 installer file name?

I need to reinstall Flash CS4 because I somehow broke the CS4 version of Bridge last week. I *know* I've got the installer somewhere on my hard drive but have been unsuccessful in locating it.
Can someone give me a hint as to the installer name? I've done searches on "Adbe", "ADBEFLPEN", looked for .dmg files, and about a half dozen other tries. I don't need the full file name but a few characters to enable a good search would be a big help. I'm on a pc.
Thanks!

Hi
Ouch!! Backup is your friend...
Couldn't you just download a trial version and activate it again?
Technolux has a nice site with links to earlier versions..(All trials)
http://technolux.blogspot.com/
Follow the guidelines closely.
Best regards
Peter

Flash actions and instance names

Hi, i'm after some advise on how to navigate around the timeline using buttons. I know this sounds simple but i'm running into some daft problems.
I've added a single instance for a button called 'button' which appears on multiple keyframes. This button only appears once per keyframe but some of the actions are getting mixed up. I know that i can create multiple instances to get around this but in principle i cant see why having one action attached to one instance per keyframe would cause an issue regardless of that fact i have the same instance appear on multiple keyframes. Should flash be behaving like this?
Andy

Hi Ned, what i have is a layer called actions that hosts a number of actionscripts with a keyframe for each script. To save time i usually create the first frame using unique instance names and then i simply copy and paste them into subsequent keyframes. So each KEYFRAME has unique instances. I thought that by doing this i would save time by not having to re-name or reposition each instance that appears on my timeline - this would take a long time not to mention the complications it would cause should i decide to shuffle a few frames about later on. For the majority of the time everything works just fine but occasionally the timeline will jump to somewhere totally unexpected. the problem is compounded by the fact that many of these buttons control video playback, so you can imagine the mess this is causing.
If what i'm doing is bad practice then i'll happily do it the right way by naming each instance but i'm still struggling to see why actions are getting mixed up when they run on their own keyframe.

Ihave flash cs4 where is the Up, Over, Down, hit button things

I have flash cs4 and cant find the Up, Over, Down, hit button things
please tell me where they are or what they were replaced with.
thanks.

i cant find it
is it suposed to be here
or here

Flash CS5 instance name problems

I can't give instance names in my AS2 project. When I click on the Instance Name box it is locked. I can only give instance names to the text objects. Movie clips and buttons are locekd. Please Help

Hey guys,
I struggled with this too.
It seems if you make a reference to it in the action script it allows you to set an instance of that name (basically. why would you need to set a name if there is no reference to it in the action script)
e.g add something like
mc_myMovieClipName.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, myFunction);
and you will be allowed to rename a new symbol of that name.
(or change your existing references to your OLD movieclip name and you will be allowed to rename it)
If there are 2 symbols on the stage and only 1 reference in the code. only 1 symbol will be allowed to be named and you will have to add...
mc_myMovieClipName2.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, myFunction2);
to the code in order to name the second movieclip.
Please let me know if this helps.

Loading SWF giving Instance name as TimeLine

I'm Loading swf into a movieclip name main_mc. After
successfully loading it into main_mc. I had written a function to
get all children present in that movieclip(main_mc). It is getting
Children present in that, but every time it give [Object
MainTimeLine] as instance3 or sometime instance10. How can i
control instance name of maintimeline as it is randomly getting its
name.... I'm attaching code use in getting child and loading it...
Plz check if their any problem in code.
quote:
Clip=new Loader();
var urlRequest:URLRequest=new URLRequest("test.swf");
Clip.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,LoadingDone);
Clip.load(urlRequest);
private function LoadingDone(event:Event):void {
var _mc:MovieClip=event.target.content as MovieClip;
main_mc.addChildAt(_mc,0);
//if i trace the name of _mc movieclip... it will instance4
or instance10 randomly
trace(_mc.name);
showChildren(stage,0);
function showChildren(dispObj, indentLevel:Number):void {
for (var i:uint = 0; i < dispObj.numChildren; i++) {
var obj:DisplayObject = dispObj.getChildAt(i);
if (obj is DisplayObjectContainer) {
trace(padIndent(indentLevel), obj.name, obj);
showChildren(obj, indentLevel + 1);
} else {
trace(padIndent(indentLevel) + obj);
function padIndent(indents:int):String {
var indent:String = "";
for (var i:uint = 0; i < indents; i++) {
indent += " ";
return indent;
when loading is done suppose test.swf has one_mc movieclip
Children traced are like that...
quote:
main_mc [object MovieClip]
instance3 [object MainTimeline]
one_mc [object MovieClip]
[object Shape]
Can we solve this problem...

you can't control the instance name of a main timeline. but
if you name everything else, the main timeline will be the only
object whose instance name starts with "instance".

Newbie in hell...flash cs4 image

Hello everyone,
I must warn you I am an absolute beginner with flash, however am proficient in Illustrator / ps cs4 and now have flash cs4. I have a mountain of graphic work for a client and as part of this welcome work I've inherited a flash header that I need to finish for a website. The only problem is, I usually work in print and know nothing about flash, but would like to tackle this if I can. The inherited header is 980 x 230 with 8 images that fade in/out as they change over each other (morph). It was originally done in flash 10 using tweens but I gather flash has changed a bit with regards to this sort of thing.
I like to learn new things but I have spent HOURS online and just can't find out how to do this. I've had a good look around flash but unfortunately I just can't dedicate days or weeks to learning the entire program.
From what I can gather so far:
The images go into flash library (is jpeg ok or do they have to be BMP) then I need to convert them to symbols then they go into the timeline as layers ...OMG I guess my first question is..is this a fairly simple thing to accomplish or should I look at outsourcing it? I'm pretty good with the teaching myself stuff, but my biggest enemy is time. I've looked at the adobe tv tuts but didn't see anything like what I'm after (the image doesn't need to slide, it just needs to fade into another one).
I'm so buggered, hoping if I get some sleep some kind soul will either be willing to help, or tell me to forget it, either way helping to end my frustration!
Thanks in advance,
A bona fide Flash Dummie...
Lauren

I
don't have CS4 so I am not familiar with the new way of tweening, only
with what CS4 calls classic tweens, which is what I grew up with in
Flash. What I described for you is based on classic tweens.
While those in in the know
(a few) praise the wonders of the new tweens, general concensus in these
forums for those that question them is that trying/learning to work
with the new tweens is not straightforward.
As far as movieclip versus
graphic goes, neither is preferable over the other. Both will perform
in a tween. Movieclips are useful when you have more to do with the
object than just display it.
The difference with the motion tweens is that the motion tweens are built to be easily scalable and to provide a graphical interface for easily updating/editing the tweens visually (including path, timing etc). Classic tween is what you want for your project so you're on the right track. As far as the difference between a movieclip and a bitmap not mattering, well it depends really on the scale of the project but best practice is to go with the smaller class. The movieclip class is massive, one of the largest because it is a dynamic type and is near the bottom of the chain of inheritance on the flash displayobject list. So, the bitmap class would be probably like 1/10th the file size of the movieclip class, so go with bitmap. Since flash is primarily a web technology and I'm sure you're doing this project for a website, every byte matters. Imagine the difference in filesize is 5 kb just because of what classes you decide to use but you decide to deploy the project on a website with 5 million users. Thats 25 gigabytes of wasted bandwidth. Anyway that doesn't really apply to you because you're doing timeline tweens and the flash IDE will automatically import all of those bulky classes anyway, but it's good to keep in mind if you decide to pursue getting deeper into flash and working with actionscript.
Anyway it looks like you've almost got your project all sorted out but there is the problem with doing everything inside flash using timeline tweens. As you're aware, it's a pain if you need to update. Below is some basic actionscript you can paste inside of a new fla file. It's not the best example but I just kind of wipped it up and should be more than enough for you to pick apart and learn how actionscript 3 works in flash. So.. create a new fla set the stage to the size of your project (980 X 230) pixels. Create a new blank movieclip (might as well, read up) and give it an instance name of "imageContainer". That's it for setup in the FLA. In the same folder as the FLA create a folder beside the fla called images. Create a new text document inside that folder and name it "filelist.xml". In that list, paste this:
<files>
    <file filename="171_2784_2.jpg" />
    <file filename="165_2564_0.jpg" />
    <file filename="171_2690_2.jpg" />
    <file filename="171_2735_1.jpg" />
</files>
Copy all of your images for this project into the images folder. Now modify that XML to include the name of each file in the folder.
Now back in your FLA, click the first frame of the main timeline. Open the actions panel (view -> actions in the menu)
Now paste this into that frame:
import fl.transitions.Tween;
import fl.transitions.easing.Strong;
import fl.transitions.TweenEvent;
var listIndex:int = 0;
var nextImage:Bitmap = new Bitmap();
var listOfImages:Array = new Array();
var listLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
listLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, parseFileList);
listLoader.load(new URLRequest("images/filelist.xml"));
var imageLoader:Loader = new Loader();
var cycleTimer:Timer = new Timer(5000, 0);
cycleTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, beginImageCycling);
function parseFileList(e:Event):void
    //trace(e.currentTarget.data); //Uncomment this to debug and see what data is coming in
    var fileListXML:XML;
    try{
        fileListXML= new XML(e.currentTarget.data);
    }catch(e:Error){
        trace("The file list is either not well formed XML or not XML at all");
    var a:Number;
    //Get an XMLList object which will contain all of the children of the fileListXML
    var fileList:XMLList = fileListXML.children();
    for(a = 0; a < fileList.length(); ++a){
        trace(fileList[a].attribute("filename"));
        listOfImages.push(fileList[a].attribute("filename"));
    trace("Done parsing file list XML");
    beginImageCycling();
function beginImageCycling(e:TimerEvent = null):void
    imageLoader = new Loader();
    imageLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, showNextImage);
    imageLoader.load(new URLRequest("images/" + listOfImages[listIndex]));
    listIndex++;
    if(listIndex >= listOfImages.length){
        //This will reset the index and begin looping from the images from the start
        listIndex = 0;
function showNextImage(e:Event):void
    trace("Image loaded, get ready to show it");
    nextImage = e.currentTarget.content as Bitmap;
    var tw:Tween = new Tween(nextImage, "alpha", Strong.easeOut, nextImage.alpha, 0, 1, true);
    tw.addEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH, changeOutImage);
    tw.start();
function changeOutImage(e:Event):void
    while(imageContainer.numChildren > 2){
        trace("removing old images");
        imageContainer.removeChildAt(0);
    //Add the new image to the container, in this case the stage
    imageContainer.addChild(nextImage);
    var tw:Tween = new Tween(nextImage, "alpha", Strong.easeOut, nextImage.alpha, 1, 1, true);
    //Restart the timer to cycle images
    cycleTimer.reset();
    cycleTimer.start();
In the menu go to Control--->Play. That should do it, it should cycle through those images over and over. I'm at work doing this on my lunch I'll post a completed project/demo of this later when I get home and give you an intro to actionscript by covering the code I've put here. Anyway so now the benefit of doing things this way is that if you want to adjust the transition time, you simply go to the :Tween = new Tween lines and change this:
Strong.easeOut, nextImage.alpha, 1, 1, true);
to:
Strong.easeOut, nextImage.alpha, 2, 1, true);
Which will change the transition time from 1 second to 2 seconds. Or, say if you want to add new pictures, all you have to do is change that XML and copy in new pictures, something even your client could do (which is sure to make them happy).
Anyway I'll post later even if you don't need this anymore it may be useful to somoene else who finds this topic one day. .:)
-Jesse

How in Flash CS4 to change text words of .fla file from a website template?

I have a website template in which I am trying to change the header text words and menu text words to customize the template. How do I do this in Flash CS4? Thanks!

There are any number of ways these text elements might have been designed into the file. So you pretty much have to search for things. If you do not see the text that you want to change when you open the fla file, then you may need to either make some layers visible that are not (eyeball icon next to layer name) or you may need to look into the actionscript code to see if the text is being dynamically written when the file opens. If you happened to receive any .as, .txt, or .xml files with the template, the text elements may also be defined in those files.
Just so you know, and this is just an observation, it appears from experience in these forums that template designers tend to make templates so that you are more likely to hire them to update things than to be able to solve it yourself.

Flash cs4 mac - Error opening URL '/:Users:someting.swf' - Not a "loading external content" problem

Hello.
I am having a weird problem when trying to test a movie or publish preview -> flash on mac with Leopard os.
The result is a blank movie with the usuall "movie not loaded" if u right click on it and the output returns the "Error opening URL 'the path of the swf here'.
This has nothing to do with loading external files or something like that. It happens even in blank movies and it gives the same error if I try to open a swf from flash ide.
I can publish the project or export the movie with no problem at all.
I can preview the movie in html. I can run all the swf files in my hard disk, network, usb stick, dvd etc., but when I try to open any of these files from flash ide I got that stupid error.
Its not something that stops me from working in flash ide but its slow to export movie any time I want to test it.
Things that I've tried so far but nothing worked:
Update the flash cs4 to the latest version
Update the flash players
Restored the release flash player as default player (I am using as default the debug player)
Cleared the preferences
Move the flash cs4 folder to another location in hd
Saved the fla document first before testing the movie (in different places with or without spaces in document name or folder)
Give read & write permissions for everyone for flash.app, players and for fla files when saved first before test movie
Unistall and install the application 3-4 times.
Test every as version just in case.
Also I've checked the folders when testing movie and I can see that it creates an swf file, which I can run it outside flash ide (the one that the flash ide player cannot load) with no problem.
The mac os has the default set up as it came. Nothing chnaged in permissions or security settings.
Thanx in advance.

In this particular example I am using this code to start the
xml file load:
// now load the XML file that contains the content strings
var sXMLFile:String = "xml/home.xml";
var xmlContent:XML = new XML();
xmlContent.ignoreWhite = true;
xmlContent.onLoad = onXMLLoadComplete;
xmlContent.load( sXMLFile );
But I don’t think the code is the problem here . This
happens on every file I load when I am using a relative path to the
content, regardless of how I load the content (XML object,
loadMovie, MovieClipLoader, etc…) and the same code executes
perfectly on every other machine in the office(Mac and PC).
I’m more concerned with the semi-colons and .swf filename
that Flash is putting into my relative path on the error message.
Is that normal?

Giving things instance names. Flash cs4

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