ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

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Chapter 13: Movie Clips

4. Choose whether to insert an absolute reference, which begins with _root,orarel-

ative reference, which expresses the reference to the target clip in relation to the

clip that contains your code (

this).

5. If you are exporting to Flash 4 format, choose the Slashes Notation button for

Flash 4 compatibility. (The Dot Notation button, selected by default, composes

references that won’t work in Flash 4).

The Insert Target Path tool cannot generate relative references that ascend a hierar-

chy of clips. That is, the tool cannot be used to refer to a clip that contains the cur-

rent clip (unless you want to begin the path from

_root and proceed downward). To

create references that ascend the clip hierarchy, we must either use absolute refer-

ences starting with

_root (which therefore become descending references) or manu-

ally enter the appropriate relative references in our code using the

_parent property.

Dynamic References to Clip Objects

Normally, we know the name of the specific instance or movie we are manipulating,

but there are times when we’d like to control a clip whose name we don’t know. We

may, for example, want to scale down a whole group of clips using a loop or create a

button that refers to a different clip each time it is clicked. To handle these ...