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FLASH CS3

User Guide

You can use the

_root

alias to refer to the main Timeline of the current level. For the main Timeline, the

_root

alias

stands for

_level0

when targeted by a movie clip also on

_level0

. For a document loaded into

_level5

_root

equal to

_level5

when targeted by a movie clip also on level 5. For example, if the movie clips

southcarolina

and

florida

are both loaded into the same level, an action called from the instance

southcarolina

could use the

following absolute path to target the instance

florida

_root.eastCoast.florida

About relative paths

A relative path depends on the relationship between the controlling Timeline and the target Timeline. Relative paths
can address targets only within their own level of Flash Player. For example, you can’t use a relative path in an action
on

_level0

that targets a Timeline on

_level5

In a relative path, use the keyword

this

to refer to the current Timeline in the current level; use the

_parent

alias

to indicate the parent Timeline of the current Timeline. You can use the

_parent

alias repeatedly to go up one level

in the movie clip hierarchy within the same level of Flash Player. For example,

_parent._parent

controls a movie

clip up two levels in the hierarchy. The topmost Timeline at any level in Flash Player is the only Timeline with a

_parent

value that is undefined.

An action in the Timeline of the instance

charleston

, located one level below

southcarolina

, could use the

following target path to target the instance

southcarolina

_parent

To target the instance

eastCoast

(one level up) from an action in

charleston

, you could use the following relative path:

_parent._parent

To target the instance

atlanta

from an action in the Timeline of

charleston

, you could use the following relative path:

_parent._parent.georgia.atlanta

Relative paths are useful for reusing scripts. For example, you could attach the following script to a movie clip that
magnifies its parent by 150%:

onClipEvent (load) {_parent._xscale = 150;_parent._yscale = 150;

}

You can reuse this script by attaching it to any movie clip instance.

Note:

Flash Lite 1.0 and 1.1 support attaching scripts only to buttons. Attaching scripts to movie clips is not supported.

Whether you use an absolute or a relative path, you identify a variable in a Timeline or a property of an object with
a dot (

) followed by the name of the variable or property. For example, the following statement sets the variable

name

in the instance

form

to the value

"Gilbert"

_root.form.name = "Gilbert";

Using absolute and relative target paths

You can use ActionScript to send messages from one timeline to another. The timeline that contains the action is
called the

controlling timeline

, and the timeline that receives the action is called the

target timeline

. For example, there

could be an action on the last frame of one timeline that tells another timeline to play. To refer to a target timeline,
you must use a target path, which indicates the location of a movie clip in the display list.

The following example shows the hierarchy of a document named westCoast on level 0, which contains three movie
clips:

california

oregon

, and

washington

. Each of these movie clips in turn contains two movie clips.