If you’re testing from within Flash, the loading aspect shouldn’t be an issue, so I’m still a bit puzzled. Still, I’m glad that you feel more comfortable about the numeric version.

For sake of troubleshooting, I suggest you copy/paste this same (or similar) code into a brand new FLA with very little content — perhaps a few simple shapes — and see if you run into the same limitation (you shouldn’t). That may help you pinpoint what’s going on in your actual content FLA.

Thanks for your help. BTW, I like the new code better. It just feels right.

Thanks,
Gary

when i click to go back to “homepage” (for example) the whole thing turns a mess… jumping from one frame to another…….

it’s just like if the random mc code was still workin outside the mc!!!

Apologies for the late reply!

Off the top of my head, I’m afraid I’m not sure what might be causing this — actually, not sure I can even envision it. The only thing that should be telling the movie clip to jump anywhere are your series of gotoAndPlay() calls, and if you’re preceding that with the this keyword (and assuming those statements are inside the keyframes of the movie clip in question), then only that movie clip should be jumping around.

But maybe that’s just it? Is that movie clip continuing to play, even when you send the main timeline elsewhere? If so, you can give that movie clip an instance name and invoke MovieClip.stop() on it … or hide it by setting its MovieClip._visible property to false. Do any of these suggestions make sense? I might be missing the mark completely, so let me know if I can re-phrase to try to suggest a few other avenues.

To Gary …

First off, I’m totally new to AS and don’t know how to label a frame

You’ll be pleased to hear it’s super easy. I generally create a Timeline layer just for labels, same as for ActionScript. Add a keyframe to whatever frame you want labeled, then click that frame to select it. Look at the Property inspector, and you’ll see right where you can specify your label.

t seems that if you just use the frame number, it works just as well

Yes. The MovieClip.gotoAndPlay() method accepts either a number (for frames) or a string (for labels).

but if I add a frame number higher than 231, it just goes to frame 231 every time and won’t go any higher. It may still go to 6, 66, 126, or 186, but won’t go higher than 231. Is this because I really need to actually label the frames?

It shouldn’t matter, but the fact that it keeps getting stuck on 231 for you makes me wonder if your timeline has more than 231 frames. If it doesn’t, then 231 is the end of the line. If you choose to use frame numbers rather than labels, you should rewrite the getRandomLabel() function like this:

function getRandomFrame():Number {
  var labels:Array = new Array(6, 66, 126, 186);
  var index:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * labels.length);
  return labels[index];
}

… not that it makes any difference what the function is called, but at least this way you’re actually returning numbers, rather than strings (notice the :Number datatype on the function’s return value, and the omitted quotation marks on the array’s items).

You should be able to put any numbers in there you please, as long as the timeline that contains this code has that many frames. If you have especially heavy assets in that particular timeline, it might be that Flash Player is still loading those frames, while gotoAndPlay() makes the attempt to jump to a frame that doesn’t exist … yet.

Might that be it?

function getRandomLabel():String {
var labels:Array = new Array(”6″, “66″, “126″, “186″);
var index:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * labels.length);
return labels[index];
}
this.gotoAndPlay(getRandomLabel());

but if I add a frame number higher than 231, it just goes to frame 231 every time and won’t go any higher. It may still go to 6, 66, 126, or 186, but won’t go higher than 231. Is this because I really need to actually label the frames? If so, how do I?

Thanks in advance.

but the thing is, the random slideshow is workin’ fine, i click to go to the frame where the random slideshow mc is and it works just fine, but when i click to go back to “homepage” (for example) the whole thing turns a mess… jumping from one frame to another…….

it’s just like if the random mc code was still workin outside the mc!!!

Could you give me some help??

best regards, Danny

There you go! Cool!

I changed the line to read:

this.gotoAndPlay(labels[currentLabel]);

Thank you for your help!

I wonder if you’re running into the issue described in “Why Doesn’t _root.gotoAndPlay() Work with Scenes“?

I’ve applied this code and it works wonderfully with a single scene. However, when I try to apply it to one scene in an environment with many of them, it doesn’t seem to work quite right. I only have labels on the last scene, but when it runs the gotoNextLabel it returns to the first frame of the first scene. For some reason it seems to ignore the actual frame labels.

This scene on its own works perfectly. When it’s part of a movie with other scenes it acts a little strange. Am I missing something?

Buttons and images shouldn’t harm a thing, though you didn’t mention how you used those in conjunction with the sample code. Is your FLA document configured for ActionScript 2.0? Often, it helps to start small and build your way toward a goal. Start a FLA file without buttons and images — just use shapes on, say, three different frame — and use that as a proof of concept. When that works (it should!) replace the shapes with images. When that works, increase the images from three to eight, etc. Then add your buttons.