Assigning links in your Flash movie...

[djbosak]

To add some interactivity to the flash animated part of your web design template you should add some links to the flash objects. For example you will need to link flash buttons with pages of your website or redirect your flash intro to your homepage after it finished.
There are different kinds of links in Macromedia Flash: button symbol links, frame links and text links.
First of all you should open source FLA file in Macromedia Flash editor, see instructions about it in the Opening your Fla movie section.

To add links to the button symbols in your flash movie you need to do the following. First of all you should locate the button symbol that you want the link to be assigned to. There are two ways to do this.

The first way is to access it from the timeline. After you've opened FLA file in Macromedia Flash, move the red timeline slider and watch the animation process. When you see button symbol that needs to be linked, stop the timeline slider.

Select it by single clicking it with Selection Tool . You can choose Selection Tool from tools panel or call this tool by pressing "V" hotkey. Go to the Properties Panel to check this symbols behavior. If you can't see this panel for any reason you can open it by pressing "Ctrl + F3" hotkey. At the top left corner of this panel the symbols behavior dropdown is located. It must be a "Button". If it is "Movie Clip", "Graphics" or anything that differs from "Button" you can not assign links to it. Don't change it to a "Button" class because it will damage the original rollover structure. Double click this symbol to open it, select its content and check symbols behavior again.

Fig 9.5 Symbol Behavior

If you are still unable to locate appropriate symbol, it could be because some symbols are hidden and or locked. To unhide/unlock symbols do the following. Go to the timeline panel, there is a layers list at the left of it. There are three icons at the top of this list: eye, lock and rectangle. Click eye and lock icons twice to unhide and unlock all layers in the current symbol.

Some of the flash headers have complicated structures to create powerful animation effects. So it will be hard to access button symbols from the timeline. The easiest and most reliable way to locate elements in flash is to use symbols library. To open symbols library you can use "Ctrl + L" hotkey or choose Window/Library... from the top menu.

Browse the symbols library to find the button symbol that you want links be assigned to. You can see the symbols preview in the preview window at the top of symbols library panel. All button symbols have appropriate names such as "About Us button" or "Search button". Double click the symbols icon to edit it in the main workspace window. Then perform the operations described above to locate symbol with "Button" behavior.

After you've selected the button symbol press "F9" to open the Actions panel. If this button has a rollover effect, you will see following script code there:

on (rollOver) {
gotoAndPlay(2);
}
on (rollOut) {
gotoAndPlay(10);
}

Add after that will be the getURL action script code:

on (release) {
getURL("your_url_here");
}

Fig 9.6 GetURL Action Script

You should type in the URL of the page you want to link to as a getURL function argument. For example if you want the link button to point to your contacts page then you would enter the following:

on (release) {
getURL("http://mywebsite.com/contacts.html");
}

Actually the getURL function accepts three arguments: URL, window type and variables send method. Window type argument specifies where the new URL will be opened. If this argument is left blank, the link will be opened in same window. If you want to open it in a new window, use the "_blank" argument. Variables send method should be used if you are parsing some variables through the URL string. Available options are "GET" and "POST". The next action script example calls the products page with the "item" variable with a "9" value in the same window using the GET method.

on (release) {
getURL("http://mywebsite.com/products.php?item=9", "_self", "GET");
}

If you are using a flash intro template, you will need to redirect your visitor to your homepage after the intro is finished playing. To do this, follow the next instructions.

Move the red timeline slider to the end of flash intro movie. Select the last frame by single clicking it with mouse. Press "F6" to create keyframe in this frame. Press "F9" to open Actions panel. Type the following code there.

getURL("your_url_here");

Replace your_url_here text with athe ppropriate URL of your website.

If you want some portion of text to be linked to a different location on your page, do the following. Locate symbol containing text using instructions from the changing text section. Select the text you want to link to using the Text Tool. Go to Properties Panel, press "Ctrl+F3" if you can't see it for any reason. At the very bottom of that panel you will see the URL input box. It has a chain link icon just to the left of it. Just fill that empty input box with appropriate URL.

Fig 9.7 URL Input Box

Now it's time to publish your flash movie. Read Publishing Your Flash Movie section for detailed instructions.