Need help with SWF page transitions please :)

Question

I am having an issue recreating something I have seen on
other flash sites... (For example on 2Advanced.com) It is hard to
explain but I will do my best. I am advanced in design, layout,
tweening, and am a beginner to intermediate action scripter. So
even if your solution is a point in the right direction to some
code I could pick up and noodle around with that would be great.
That having been said, on to the issue, it's a 2 parter:
Part 1:
I have a Master FLA (or SWF) containing navigation that loads
secondary SWF pages into movie clip containers for the 5 additional
pages of the site. These load above the Master movie clip masking
it (Navigation floats above) so the loaded pages are sandwiched in
between.
View page in it's current state here:
http://sky.prohosting.com/tk421808/rwip/gallery_MAIN.html
This works ok right now, but I have the SWFs replacing one
another in one single movie clip container. What I would like to do
is similar to shuffling 5 cards... if you want the 4th card down
you pull it out, it goes to the top and slides over the last
visible card on top. So I would like the first page clicked to
slide in covering the master MC, the second page clicked, to slide
in covering that one, and so on and so forth. This would be easy if
the pages were linear, then I could just stack the movie clips, but
since the user will click out of order I need a way to load one
into MC_2 (on top), Then when another is clicked have the MC_2 SWF
move down a level (Swap MC?) to allow the second to slide in above,
and then delete the movie that has moved down into level one
(Bottom) then have this repeat when another movie is clicked. This
way it will look like the page you clicked is always sliding in
over the one you are leaving.
Part 2:
I have no idea how to do this next part but... I believe it
involves a gotoAndPlay. I would like to have animation in the movie
that is unloading after the button for the next page to load is
clicked... in other words, you have loaded a page, you click on
another link, and before the new external SWF page loads, the
current performs a gotoAndPlay where I have animated some
de-constructing swipes that remove the text, shapes holding the
text, and the image. ONLY THEN does it start to load the movie for
the link it selected. I think what I am trying to ask here is how
does it carry the link through the unloading animation until it's
done and then execute the loading of the new external SWF of the
link they just clicked?
I pray this makes sense... If not I would be happy to explain
further. :) Thanks in advance for any help!

Answer 1

>> I have no idea how to do this next part but... I
believe it involves a
gotoAndPlay. I would like to have animation in the movie that
is unloading
after the button for the next page to load is clicked... in
other words,
you
have loaded a page, you click on another link, and before the
new external
SWF
page loads, the current performs a gotoAndPlay where I have
animated some
deconstructing swipes that remove the text, shapes holding
the text and them
the image, and ONLY THEN does it start to load the movie for
the link it
selected. I think what I am trying to ask here is how does it
carry the
link
through the animation until it's done and then execute the
loading of the
external SWF of the link they just clicked?
<<
You don't use frames. I'd probably use Fuse for this - which
is a sequencing
engine. (www.mosessupposes.com) You can call a function when
the sequence is
done animating - using what's known as a callBack function.
That'd be the
best way, IMO.
For part one, you could either place mutliple empty movie
clips, or just
create them using createEmptyMovieClip - which is a MovieClip
method, and
then load your swfs into them with MovieClipLoader. You can
use swapDepths
for layer control, in order to have any given clip move above
another, layer
wise.
Dave -
Head Developer
http://www.blurredistinction.com
Adobe Community Expert
http://www.adobe.com/communities/experts/