Creating Interactive Movies > Using basic actions for navigation and interaction > Playing and stopping movies
Playing and stopping moviesUnless instructed otherwise, once a movie starts, it plays through every frame in the Timeline. You can stop or start a movie at specific intervals by using the Play and Stop actions. For example, you can stop a movie at the end of a scene before proceeding to the next scene. Once stopped, a movie must be explicitly started again, using the Play action.
The Play and Stop actions are most commonly used to control movie clips with buttons, or to control the main Timeline. The movie clip you want to control must have an instance name, must be targeted, and must be present in the Timeline. See Controlling other movies and movie clips.
To start or stop a movie:
1 | Select the frame, button instance, or movie clip instance to which you will assign the action. |
2 | Choose Window > Actions to display the Actions panel. |
3 | In the Toolbox list, click the Basic Actions category to display the basic actions, and select the Stop action. |
Flash inserts ActionScript similar to the following in the Actions list: | |
onClipEvent (load) { stop (); } |
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where onClipEvent (load) indicates that when the movie loads, Flash should execute the instruction stop to stop the movie. |
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Note: Empty parentheses after an action indicate that it's a method (capability) that has no parameters or arguments.
To play a movie clip:
1 | Select the movie clip you want to play, or select the button that controls the playback. |
2 | Choose Window > Actions to display the Actions panel. |
3 | In the Toolbox list, click the Basic Actions category to display the basic actions, and select the Play action. |
Flash enters ActionScript similar to the following in the Actions list: | |
on (release) { play (); } |
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where on(release) indicates that when the button is released, Flash should execute the instruction play to play the movie. |
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