Actionscript newbie: simple stop issue

[Screenweasel webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Hello everyone.

I'm trying to get a nested movie to stop playing when a 'stop' button is clicked. This movie is nested within two other movies, and I have the current actions assigned to the 'stop' movie clip (as opposed to the frame):

on (release) {
stop();
}

There is likely something embarrassingly obvious I am overlooking. Ideally, I'd like it to just pause and then continue on with a separate 'play' button, but for now I'll settle with just being able to stop the darn thing.

Thanks for any help.

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[kglad webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

you need to reference the path/instance name of your movieclip.

[juankpro webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Every time you use the ActionScript code

on (release) {
stop();
}

in a button by using the stop() alone you are telling the movie that contains the button to stop, but if you have movie clips the won't stop 'cause they animate independently. So to achieve this you have to give the movie clips waht is called an instance name. Here is an example:

If you have a movie clip of a car that moves in the root timeline, and inside this movieclip you have a movie clip of a wheel that rotates then you can use the following technique:

Select the car movieclip and in the property inspector there is a textBox with the words <InstanceName>. Type a name for the car in this textBox, for example "car_mc".

The edit the car movieclip and select the wheel and in the InstanceName textbox type "wheel_mc".
Now the two elements that you need to control have instance names.

Then in the button that must be in the _root timeline write this code:

on (release) {
car_mc.wheel_mc.stop();
}

This means that the wheel_mc movieclip that is inside the car_mc movieclip has to stop.

[Screenweasel webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Well, I've tried both methods, with absolute and relative pathways, and for some reason it still isn't working. My code looks like this:

on (release) {
mainstage.todaymovie.stop();
}

I've tried this in every timeline: root, mainstage, and todaymovie, and nothing works. Thanks for trying to help, though. Maybe I'll stumble across the solution.

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[Screenweasel webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

Got it to work. No idea how. I didn't do anything different I hadn't tried before. Used this:

on (release) {
_parent.stop();
}

in the movie one down from the one I wanted to stop.

Thanks for everyone's help. =-)

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