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tellTarget (target) {  
  statements}

Arguments

target

A string or reference indicating the path to a movie or movie clip instance (references are converted to paths when used in a string context).

statements

The statements to be executed in the scope of target.

Description

In Flash 3 and Flash 4, tellTarget( ) was the primary means of communicating between two movie clips (i.e., controlling one from the other). It was used to invoke functions such as play( ), stop( ), and gotoAndStop( ) on remote movie clips. In Flash 4, when variables were added to ActionScript, we could also use tellTarget( ) to get and set remote clip variable values. As of Flash 5, these endeavors are better accomplished with the dot operator, ., and the array access operator, [ ]. Another alternative to the tellTarget( ) function is the with statement, described in Chapter 6.

Usage

The tellTarget( ) function may be better described as a statement because it requires a substatement block. However, the point is academic, as tellTarget( ) has been deprecated.

Example

// Move the ball movie clip over 300 pixels to the right and
// send its playhead to the frame labeled "redStripes".
tellTarget ("ball") {
  gotoAndStop("redStripes");
  _x += 300;
}

See Also

"The with Statement," in Chapter 6; "The `Objectness' of Movie Clips," in Chapter 13; "Whither Tell Target?," in Appendix C

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