Actionscript Cookbook

13.2. Attaching Sounds at Runtime

Problem

You want to use ActionScript to attach a sound from the Library to your movie at runtime.

Solution

Use the Sound.attachSound( ) method.

Discussion

A sound must be attached to a movie clip before it can be played at runtime. You can programmatically attach sounds from the Library to Sound objects using the attachSound( ) method. To use this method properly, you must first do three things:

1. Create a Sound object (see Recipe 13.1).

2. Import a sound into the Library using File → Import to Library.

3. Set the sound symbol to export and set its linkage identifier using the Linkage option in the Library panel’s pop-up Options menu.

After successfully completing these three steps, you can call the attachSound( ) method and pass it the linkage identifier of the sound symbol to attach:

// Include Sound.as to access the createNewSound(  ) method from Recipe 13.1.
#include "Sound.as"

// Create a new Sound object.
mySound_sound = Sound.createNewSound(  );

// Attach a sound to the Sound object. The Library sound symbol 
// must be set to export and have a linkage identifier that matches 
// the string passed to attachSound(  ).
mySound_sound.attachSound("MySoundSymbol");

See Also

Attached sounds do not start playing until you tell them to do so. See Recipe 13.3 for more information about playing sounds. Recipe 14.5 demonstrates how to use Microphone.attachAudio( ) to attach audio data from the user’s microphone.