Animation for menu items

[David Blake]

I am creating a menu animation in which when you select on a button menu item, a certain action takes place (for instance lets say a box of color expands down and stops. What I want to do, is if they then select on another button item from the menu, I want the box of color to return to its original location before the new selected box of color expands down (I hope my example makes sense.) Basically what I need to happen is for on release, the flash file needs to continue playing on the timeline until the color box returns and then goto and play at a new instance on the timeline. How would I go about doing that?

[Sgaspar11]

Maybe it's just early, but can you post some examples of what you are wanting to do? I can't really comprehend what you are wanting...



Cheers,

Scott

[MrMadison]

I think he's trying to get at submenu's.....or something like that.

[David Blake]

Here's an example on a site that is doing what I want. The top area of the site has photos that will fade in when you click on a thumbnail at the bottom. However, when you click on a subsequent thumbnail, the picture showing fades out before the next one comes in. So it seems that when you click on a thumbnail, it first plays more of the timeline and fades the photo out before gotoandplay the next fade in. Does this make sense how I am describing it?

http://www.katjaschweiker.com/

[Sgaspar11]

Ok, this is just a bunch of different movie clips loading into one another from the looks of things...

Here is a basic idea of what you are wanting, I would start with something like this, and then we can expand on other parts of it. I just don't know what your comfort level is with flash, and do to what is on that site is sort of involved.

Anyways, this look should get you started:

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/thumbnails.htm

[David Blake]

I'm failing you guys in trying to explain what I am trying to do. I wasn't really looking for the thumbnail thing in my example but rather the event of the fade out as it loads the movie.

Here's a link to another site that does what I am looking for.
http://www.the-medium.net/

When you click on a menu item, see how it first fades out the copy before the scene moves? How is it accomplished that when they click on a menu button, it plays the fade out and then goes to and plays the scene shift?

[Sgaspar11]

I got ya.

I'd imagine this can be accomplished with standard movie clips and a button telling the movie clip to:

Fade in and stop halfway though so the movie clip is at 100% alpha, then on a button target the movie clip.

Code: Select all

 
On (release) {
movieclip.GotoAndStop (key frame name);
}

Where movieclip is the instance name of the movie clip.

And then on the last key frame of the movie clip have it load another movie clip. That'd be one way to do it I'd imagine.

[David Blake]

I will play around with this approach- Thanks!

Dave

[Sgaspar11]

Cool, another thing to think about is that this could also be accomplished using multiple .swfs - where it unloads and loads a new .swf then the buttons are pushed. I doubt this technique was used on this but if you file size gets huge, it's a way to decrease the load time upfront.

A couple of things to think about...

Let me know if you want some tutorials around this, I can look for some.

[David Blake]

If you could drum up any tutorials that I could use for reference, that would be GREAT!

Dave

[David Blake]

Boy, I guess I'm confused now.

Here's the approach I'm taking. I have four menu items, each with a different color box for that button.

I have created swf files of the action that takes place when a menu item is selected. For instance, when the orange box is selected, it is to load the swf file named "OrangeAll.swf". This swf file contains the animation that goes on to introduce the contents of that menu item (i.e, the orange box is the "About Us" section. I have a Stop in that swf file where it stops once the contents is there. If I didn't, the animation would continue and the animation to remove the imagery of that section would take place. (i.e. the fade out concept from the link example I posted earlier.)

So what I would like to have happen is that if they select the button from another menu item, say the purple box, the actions for that purple button would be to finish playing the "OrangeAll.swf contents after the pause to remove the orange content area imagery, then load and play the swf for the purple area content, or the "PurpleAll.swf" file.

I don't think I'm headed in the right direction with this though.

Help???

[Sgaspar11]

Here you go...this will most definately get you in the right direction...I hope!!!

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/transitions.htm

[David Blake]

Hey, I think this is exactly what I am looking for! I will go through it and give it a try!

Thanks for your help!!!

Dave