• Step one
• Step two
• Step three
• Step four
• Step five
• Step six

Open Flash and change the stage size of the new document to 300X300 and the frame rate to 21fps.

Draw a small (button sized) rectangle on the stage. Type "reset" (using static text) on top of your rectangle. Select both the text and the rectangle (at once) and convert them to a movieclip - name it "resetButton" and ensure that the registration point is set to the top-left corner.

Now delete the resetButton mc from the stage so that it only exists in the library. Select it in the library and from the drop down menu up the top-right of the library choose "linkage". Check the "export for actionscript" box and give it an identifier of "myResetButton".

Click on the first frame of the only layer in your timeline. Add this action to the frame:

stop();
_root.attachMovie("myResetButton","newResetButton",200);

What does this do? Well stop() stops the main timeline. The next line attaches our reset button to the main timeline (_root). It does this by first looking for the symbol with the identifier "myResetBut". When it finds it, an instance of our mc is attached to _root and given an instance name of "newResetButton". It is attached at a depth of 200.

Test your movie.

You will notice that Flash aligns the registration point of the mc we are attaching with the registration point of whatever we are attaching it to. In this case, we are attaching it to _root so the registration point if the top left corner of the stage.

Maybe we do not want it there. Our new instance has an instance name so we can position it where ever we want. Add this code under the other actions:

newResetButton._x=200;
newResetButton._y=250;

What this does is move our instance to an x position of 200 and a y position of 250. Note - Flash will align the registration point of our mc (which is the top left corner in this case) with the co-ordinates that you give it.

Test your movie again.

Our button is positioned where we want it on the stage but its not doing anything. Click on the drop down menu in the library and select "new symbol". Make it a movieclip, name it "shape1" and click OK. You should automatically be inside your new mc so draw a shape. Mine looked like this but do whatever you want:

newResetButton.onRelease=function(){
_root.attachMovie("shape1","clip1",5);
_root.attachMovie("shape2","clip2",6);
}

Test your movie again and click on the button.

The shapes are attached to the main timeline and again have their registration points aligned to the top-left corner of the stage. Shape2 appears in front of shape1 because it was attached to a higher depth (6). OK now I'm sure you're all totally blown away by what you have seen so far but don't pass out from excitement just yet.

Let's use a couple of for loops to make our button attach many copies of our shape movieclips. Change the actions that you already have for the button to:

newResetButton.onRelease=function(){
for(i=0;i<20;i++){
_root.attachMovie("shape1","clip1"+i,i);
_root["clip"+i]._x=random(500);
_root["clip"+i]._y=random(500);
_root["clip"+i]._rotation=random(360);
_root["clip"+i]._alpha=random(100);
}
for(i=50;i<60;i++){
_root.attachMovie("shape2","clip2"+i,i);
_root["clip2"+i]._x=random(500);
_root["clip2"+i]._y=random(500);
_root["clip2"+i]._rotation=random(360);
_root["clip2"+i]._alpha=random(100);
}
}

What this does is make 20 copies of shape1 and 10 copies of shape2. After making each copies, Flash places the new instance at a random position on the stage, rotates it a random amount and gives it a random alpha value. You will notice that all the shape2 copies are still appearing above the shape1 copies. This is because they are placed on a depth between 50 and 59, whereas the shape1 copies are placed on a depth of between 0 and 19 (depending on what i was up to at the time - by this I mean i the variable, not I as in me :) ).

Test your movie again and click on the button a few times. Everytime the button is click, new instances of our mcs are attached which replace the old ones (because they are being attached into the same depths). You can get some nice effects with this.

You can download this attachMovie example from here.

That will do for attachMovie.

Make a new document in Flash - the default size and everything will do.

Draw a rectangle down the bottom of the stage somewhere and convert it to a button - name it myButton and give it an instance name of "button1". OK now draw a circle and convert it to a movieclip. Name it myCircle and give it an instance name of "circle1". Move circle1 off to the left of the stage. Make a new actions layer and place this action on the first frame.

button1.onRelease=function(){
for(hiThere=1;hiThere<8;hiThere++){
circle1.duplicateMovieClip("circleCopy"+hiThere, hiThere);
_root["circleCopy"+hiThere]._y=100;
_root["circleCopy"+hiThere]._x=hiThere*circle1._width;
}
}

The first line tells us that this is an action that will happen when we click on button1. We then get into another for loop. This time I have used "hiThere" as our variable just to prove to you that it really doesn't matter what you name your varaibles ("i" is not a magical letter). So you can see from the parameters of out for loop that the code underneath with run 7 times. Each time it is run, our circle1 mc is duplicated, given a new (and unique) instance name and placed on a depth between 1 and 7. We then position our duplicate at 100 y. To get the new x position, we multiple hiThere by the width of circle, which will make all our copies line up right next to each other.

Test your movie and click on the button.

Have a play with attachMovie and duplicateMovieClip and try and do something interesting with it.