Controling Buttons through script

[random_goblin]

Does action script provide any means of targeting an instance of a button?

I have a set of buttons displaying dynamic text, updated from a txt file. I need to hide/make inactive the button if the text content for that button is null.

Short of putting all button hidden/not hidden combinations into a movie and then calling the appropriate frame, or placing each button in it own movie clip, I can't see how to do this.

Is there a more elegant method?

thanks in advance...

[Immulsifier]

Well you could make it inactive by using something like this. Say the variable in your text file is called var1.


on (release) {
if (var1 = "") {
stop ();
} else {
gotoandPlay etc
}
}


That method would show the button all the time but would make it inactive if the variable returned a null value.

To make the button disappear if the variable didnt exist you would need to put it into a movie clip and have some similar code on the main timeline which checked the varaible and then showed the movie clip if it was not equal to nothing.

Immy

[Jesse]

I would put the buttons into 1 MC each and hide or show the MCs depending on your variables. Buttons cannot have setProperty performed on them, although they are actually allocated instances in Flash 5 (if you view in the debugging environment).

[random_goblin]

Thanks,
I thought the movie clip approach was going to be the solution, just seems a little clumsy somehow.
Hopefully setProperty will be a feature of buttons and graphics in Flash6, or will we then just be calling them sprites ?