Help with Buttons and external movies

[Rubber Chicken]

I'm new to Flash MX, and I've spent the last couple of days banging my head against a brick wall!

I'm trying to create a Resume/Porfolio that I can burn onto a CD to give to prosective employers.

I have a main file that contains a Home page - (Scene 1) and a Portfolio page (Scene 2), both of which have a short animation sequence as the page is loaded. I've created a button going from the Home page to the Portfolio page ( and vice versa) using GotoAndPlay function, which works perfectly.
From the Porfolio page I have buttons going to external swf files which play my animations as swf files, or display my still work as jpegs.

I've created a button in each of the external files called 'Portfolio", with which I want to go back to the end of the Portfolio (Scene 2) timeline in the main file. Basically I want the user to click on the Porfolio button and be taken straight back to the Porfolio page, so that they can press another button to go to another animation/still image, without having to sit through the Portfolio Page animation again.

The problem I'm having is this:
I can get the button contained within the external file to go back to my main file, but it plays from the beginning of the Home page - ie from frame 1, scene 1 of the main file.

This means that the user presses the button to go back to the Portfolio page, but is intead taken back
a) to the beginning of the Home page, where they then have to wait for the Home page animation to finish,

b) then press the "go to Portfolio page" button again, and wait for the Portfolio page to animate.

c) before they can press another button to go to another animation.

Anyway, is there any way I can tell the button to go to, say, frame 30 of the Portfolio page (eg "Scene 2", 30)? Am I setting this up all wrong? Any clue what I'm talking about?

Any advice, tips, links to tutorials would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance :)

[fgf]

I can get the button contained within the external file to go back to my main file, but it plays from the beginning of the Home page - ie from frame 1, scene 1 of the main file.

what code do you have on the button to do this?

if i understand your layout

on(release){
_parent.gotoAndPlay("scene 2",30);
}

to skip the home page intro

The _parent makes it call whatever movie it was embeded in. you can also use _root which will always target the top level movie (but can cause problems if you load what is now your main movie into another one).

The other way, from main movie to loaded movie use instanceName.gotoAndPlay("scene 2",30);

Also consider doing some paths tutorials.

fgf

[Rubber Chicken]

I'll go and check out some paths tutes ..:)