I am a rookie ActionScripter who has a question about dynamically controlling
movieclips. I am trying to make a movieclip play using the hitTest function
while it is nested within another movieclip that is being moved around
(horizontally) by a slider menu control.
I am using movieclips that represent events on a time line (a graphical
representation of years, not the Flash TImeline), and as those squares move -in
response to input from the slider control, which is keyed to the parent
movieclip- across the vertical center line of the screen, they should expand
(and contract again when they move out of the center line, but I haven't gotten
to that part yet). I have tried to use the hitTest function to respond to
either an invisible movieclip stationed in the middle to act as a "trigger" for
this action for each movieclip as they are scrolled across, or to a point. I
have also tried to write code that would the use the ._x property of each
movieclip to trigger the action. For example:

onClipEvent (load) {
inside = _root._x + 265
outside = _root._x + 285
}
onClipEvent (enterFrame) {
if (content.item2._x > inside || content.item2._x < outside) {
content.item2.gotoAndPlay(2);
}
}

this doesn't seem to work at all. The hitTest hasn't worked much better. I
know that I probably have to do something to convert coordinate spaces but I am
at the limits of my experience. Is there a problem making a movieclip that is
already keyed to one event handler repond to another? I am assuming that once
this is working the way I want it to, it will be relatively easy to duplicate
the effect for all the item movieclips; any hints on that would be great. I
realize that there is a way to use the xScale and yScale properties to
accomplish the scaling effect that is simply animated here, but I'm in over my
head as it is. Any pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
I'd be glad to email the FLA to anyone who wants to see it firsthand. Thanks