MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-USING FLASH - Page 42

42 Working with Flash Documents
3. In the Actions toolbox (at the left of the panel), select an action or method that requires a
target path.
4. Click the parameter box or location in the script where you want to insert the target path.
5. Click the Insert Target Path button above the Script pane.
6. In the Insert Target Path dialog box, select a syntax: Dots (the default) or Slashes.
7. Select Absolute or Relative for the target path mode.
For more information, see “Using absolute and relative target paths” on page 39.
8. Select a movie clip in the Insert Target Path display list.
9. Click OK.
To insert a target path manually:
■ Follow steps 1–4 and enter an absolute or relative target path in the Actions panel.
To use an expression as a target path:
1. Follow steps 1–3.
2. Do one of the following:
■ Enter an expression that evaluates to a target path in a parameter box.
■ Click to place the insertion point in the script. Then, in the Functions category of the
Actions toolbox, double-click the
targetPath function.
The
targetPath function converts a reference to a movie clip into a string.
■ Click to place the insertion point in the script. Then, in the Functions category of the
Actions toolbox, select the
eval function.
The
eval function converts a string to a movie clip reference that can be used to call
methods such as
play.
The following script assigns the value 1 to the variable
i. It then uses the eval function to
create a reference to a movie clip instance and assigns it to the variable
x. The variable x is
now a reference to a movie clip instance and can call the MovieClip object methods.
i = 1;
x = eval("mc"+i);
x.play();
// this is equivalent to mc1.play();
You can also use the eval function to call methods directly, as shown in the following
example:
eval("mc" + i).play();