Help with linking buttons to Scenes

Question

Hey,
Rookie to Flash and AS3. Just needed some help with my buttons. Im making a flash program about pancakes (random I know). I have a "Mainmenu" scene and then a "Recipe" scene. I have a button on my mainmenu which takes me to the recipe page when I click it, the code behind the button is
"stop();btn_recipe.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseDownHandler);function mouseDownHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
gotoAndStop(1, "Recipe");
Then when I arrive at my recipe page I have a button which will take me back to my MainMenu, the code behind that button is:
"stop();btn_home.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouse5DownHandler);function mouse5DownHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
gotoAndPlay(1, "MainMenu");
So I run my program and the first button works and takes me to recipe page but the button to get to the main menu does nothing, click it and no response or anything
Please help

Answer 1

First, hopefully having all your code mushed onto the same line is a copy/paste error, otherwise it should look like...
stop();
btn_recipe.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, mouseDownHandler);
function mouseDownHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
     gotoAndStop(1, "Recipe");
If the intention is to click the buttons to make them work, then you should use CLICK instead of MOUSE_DOWN.  MOUSE_DOWN can be a persistent state whereas CLICK involves releasing it afterwards.
As for the code to get you back home, where is it located on the timeline?  Are you getting any error messages when you try to use it?
One thing you should learn to use is the trace() function.  It is useful for troubleshooting.  You can use it now to see if your second button is talking to the function at all...
stop();
btn_home.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, mouse5DownHandler);
function mouse5DownHandler(event:MouseEvent):void {
     trace("the button works okay");
     gotoAndPlay(1, "MainMenu");
If you don't get that message in the output panel, you'll know the button is not properly coded to work.
Most folks here will recommend you get away from using scenes in a design that includes navigation--they have a history of being problematic.  Instead of using scenes, divide the one main timeline up into sections or use movieclips for the sections and manage their visibility... or do a bit of both.