Help finishing up my first flash site - using navigation to display different sections of the site?

Question

Thanks for looking! i am making my first flash site, and im
not sure what to do next in regards to navigating through the site.
I have different sections, home, info, hardware, equipment, etc,
but im not sure how to make each section appear when you click the
corresponding navigation link. i have an idea but im not sure how
to execute it.
Should i make a movie clip for each section (home, info,
hardware, contact), then place each movie clip in its own frame on
the main time line, and on each navigation link button (each one is
a movie clip) use action script and put a gotoAndPlay() code with
the frame number of the corresponding section? so when you click
it, it goes to that frame which has the movie clip that has the
content for that part of site, say contact, or info?? if so how can
i do this?
that sounds really confusing and im sorry but please help out
a beginner! Thank you and happy halloween!
-Matt
here is a link so you can see the.swf
[url]http://www.filedorm.com/show.php/7839_INTOUCH.swf.html[/url]
and also here is a link for the .fla
[url]http://public.me.com/mattsh*t[/url]
your going to have to copy and paste that in your browser
since the world filter on here. just repleace the " * " with an " i
"

Answer 1

Targeting specific timelines in a flash movie can be daunting
in the beginning. But if you start from the main timeline (_root)
and build brom there, it becomes easier to understand.
For eg:
If you have 2 movieclips on your main timeline (_root).
Navigation and Pages.
Inside Navigation you have the buttons, and each button is a
separate movieclip.
Inside Pages you have each page, each a separate movieclip.
to target a specific page number, from a button, there are 2
ways you can go about it. The method that Ned suggested is called
RELATIVE.
-meaning that you target FROM WHERE YOU ARE.
the second method is ABSOLUTE.
-meaning you target FROM MAIN TIMELINE.
Relative is good, but can be confusing when using dot syntax.
Absolute is straight forward and easy to understand, and can
be used from anywhere in the whole movie. The downside, is that it
generally requires a bit more typing.
In the example I stated above, it does not require more
typing. simply say:
_root.page.gotoAndStop(number);
This line can be used from anywhere in your movie, at any
timeline depth, and will work with no worries.
You can also have ALL navigation code on the main timeline on
the first frame. Simply designate the path to the specific button
like so:
navigation.home_btn.onPress = function(){
doSomething;
this tells Flash that the button named "home_btn" located
inside the movieclip called "navigation" will have to doSomething
when Pressed.
I hope this helps you understand targeting a bit more.
Good Luck.