Flash Actionscript 3 Tip: Calling a function from inside a movieclip

Just spotted this quandary on the forums regarding calling an Actionscript 3 function on the main timeline of Flash from inside of another movieclip.  This is one of my favorite type questions to answer because I had about a 50/50 chance of actually remembering how it was done without looking in some old .fla to find the last place I’d done this. And today I got it right…

Paste this onto a frame in the main timeline of your .fla…

function mainTimeline()

{

trace (“yo, I’m a function on the main timeline. If you are reading this, I was called by script in the logo movieclip”);

}

function mainTimeline() {

trace (“yo, I’m a function on the main timeline. If you are reading this, I was called by script inside a movieclip”);

}

Now use any movieclip you have onstage, and double click into it’s timeline and paste the following on a frame…

MovieClip(parent).mainTimeline();

Thats it. Totally done. If you publish, that trace statement will get called and you’ll see it in the Output window.

Alright what if you wanted to call this function from 2 mc’s deep. Like one movieclip inside of another. The code is…

MovieClip(parent.parent).mainTimeline();

Make sense? Also remember, you can use similar code for finding movieclips on the main timeline. So to find an instance call “cartoonsmart” on the root and change its x location and make it play, you’d use…

MovieClip(parent).cartoonsmart.x = 400;

MovieClip(parent).cartoonsmart.gotoAndPlay(2);

Yoink! Done! Pretty easy again, right. I’ll be here all week. Drive carefully.