The Tell Target action is a pretty straightforward concept: Use an
action to tell another target symbol what to do. Actually making it
happen, on the other hand, is a little more complicated.
The cool thing about Tell Target is that it allows nonlinear
interaction in your Flash movie. You can use it to start or stop the
animation in a symbol or force it to jump to a specific frame. For
example, say an animation in your movie is rolling. By using Tell Target,
you can allow the user to turn a soundtrack on or off at any point,
independent of the playing animation. Let's create this very effect right
now.
To create this effect, we need two different symbols: a button for
initiating actions (the "Tell" part) and a "Target" symbol. First, let's
tackle the target symbol. This will do two things: contain the soundtrack
and indicate the status of a Play/Stop button.
To begin, open the movie with the tween shape you created in the
previous lesson. With nothing selected, create a blank symbol
(Insert:Create Symbol) and name it "Soundtrack." Before you click OK,
assign the Movie Clip behavior to this symbol. (Don't worry. If you were
too trigger happy, you can always redefine the symbol from the Properties
menu via the Library tool palette.) A Movie Clip symbol will play
independently of the movie that contains it, even if the movie has stopped,
which is just what we want.
You should now see a blank time line that corresponds to the Soundtrack
symbol. But where's our sound? Looks as though we need to go get one.
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