Getting a Hand With AS3

Today i decided i needed to use a movieclip as a button using actionscript 3. Easier said then done.

I tried putting a movieclip on the stage and set it to ‘act as a button’ in the property inspector. Turns out that you can’t make it gotoAndPlay on another frame other then the default up, down, over, and hit states.

After doing some research i deleted the movieclip off the stage and dragged a new one out there. Then i followed these steps to make my movieclip button.

Add buttonName.buttonMode = true; in the actions panel. This will allow the movieclip to have a hand cursor when rolled over. This is new for AS3.
If you have text in the movieclip you have to add buttonName.mouseChildren = false; otherwise skip to step 3. This will allows anything contained in the main movieclip to allow the hand cursor as well.
now add your event listeners and you’re ready to go.

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You’re currently reading “Getting a Hand With AS3,” an entry on Gena's Blurb

Published:: November 6, 2007 / 11:54 pm

Category:: Actionscript 3.0, Buttons, flash cs3

Tags:: actonscript 3, as3, button, buttonMode, child, children, Flash, flash cs3, movieclip, text

David 7.17.08 / 3am

Thank You! You have saved me an my app!

Greg Zimdahl 7.24.08 / 7pm

Thanks I did not know about the “.mouseChildren = false;” I would have been looking for a while… How would I have known to look for something like that.

Sharwan 8.20.08 / 8am

hey, nice tip !

Thanks

Casey 10.12.08 / 6pm

Thanks a lot, especially for step 2.

Alex Grande 11.18.08 / 7am

Thanks dude! I have noticed a lot of other tutorials out there overlook this important step. In CSS I often get QA issue tickets for not having cursor: pointer; for links and buttons and it shouldn’t be any less strict for flash.

Mairum Falcirolli 1.14.09 / 10am

Thank you very much! Thumbs up for step 2.

NIcholas 9.12.09 / 12pm

just started using Button mode when i saw it somewhere didn’t know what it meant and searched for it and found your website, thanks for explaining.

but u do not actually need to switch your mc to a button, like you said, as it will affect your animation inside and so on.

just ask flash to detect your movieclip as a button under the properties panel. you will get the hand cursor as well

er sorry i have to re-correct my method to avoid confusing other ppl, you haf to create a empty movieclip within that mc and change that to detect as a button.

so it will detect the empty MC(or button) within that MC

Yuri_ 9.30.09 / 2pm

very thank you for this hint!

Chris 10.20.09 / 10pm

Awesome thanks dude!

Though I have text in my movie clip and don’t appear to need that second line of code….

James 11.3.09 / 3am

Thanks a lot, you saved me also!! )

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Getting a Hand With AS3

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