Managing Movie Clip Depths - MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-LEARNING ACTIONSCRIPT 2.0 IN FLASH Manual

Managing movie clip depths

Every movie clip has its own z-order space that determines how objects overlap within its
parent SWF file or movie clip. Every movie clip has an associated depth value, which
determines if it renders in front of or behind other movie clips in the same movie clip
timeline. When you create a movie clip at runtime by using
(MovieClip.attachMovie method)
(MovieClip.duplicateMovieClip method)
(MovieClip.createEmptyMovieClip method)
clip as a method parameter. For example, the following code attaches a new movie clip to the
timeline of a movie clip named
container_mc.attachMovie("symbolID", "clip1_mc", 10);
This example creates a new movie clip with a depth of 10 within the z-order space of
.
container_mc
The following code attaches two new movie clips to
, is rendered behind
clip1_mc
container_mc.attachMovie("symbolID", "clip1_mc", 10);
container_mc.attachMovie("symbolID", "clip2_mc", 15);
Depth values for movie clips can range from -16384 to 1048575. If you create or attach a new
movie clip on a depth that already has a movie clip, the new or attached clip overwrites the
existing content. To avoid this problem, use the
method; however, do not use this method with components that use a different depth-
management system. Instead, use "DepthManager class" with component instances.
The MovieClip class provides several methods for managing movie clip depths; for more
information, see
getNextHighestDepth (MovieClip.getNextHighestDepth
,
method) getInstanceAtDepth (MovieClip.getInstanceAtDepth method)
getDepth (MovieClip.getDepth method)
(MovieClip.swapDepths method)
For more information on movie clip depths, see the following topics:
"Determining the next highest available depth" on page 367
"Determining the instance at a particular depth" on page 367
"Determining the depth of an instance" on page 368
"Swapping movie clip depths" on page 368
366 Working with Movie Clips
,
duplicateMovieClip
, or
createEmptyMovieClip
, you always specify a depth for the new
with a depth value of 10.
container_mc
because it was assigned a lower depth value.
clip2_mc
MovieClip.getNextHighestDepth()
, and
swapDepths
in the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference.
attachMovie
. The first clip, named
container_mc
,