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mc.getDepth()

Returns

An integer specifying the depth of mc in its parent's visual content stack.

Description

The getDepth( ) method returns the integer position of mc in its parent movie clip's content stack. Higher depths obscure lower depths, so a depth of 6 is in front of 5, which is in front of 4, and so on. Depth positions range from -16384 to 1048575. Depths above -1 are reserved for dynamically generated content; depths from -16383 to -1 (inclusive) are reserved for author-time content; and depth -16384 is reserved for dynamic content that appears beneath all author-time content in each clip (e.g., a runtime background).

Each instance's depth is initialized when the clip is created (either in the Flash authoring tool or via attachMovie( ), createEmptyMovieClip( ), or duplicateMovieClip( )). However, an instance can be moved to a different depth via swapDepths( ). Content placed at a given depth replaces any content previously loaded at that depth.

For important details, see Section 13.4.

Example

The following code creates three clips and draws a line in each. The first line clip (red) is created behind the second line clip (blue). Then the third line clip (green) is placed in the red line clip's depth, effectively replacing it. The redline_mc clip's depth is dynamically determined via getDepth( ).

// Red line appears in back (depth 1)
this.createEmptyMovieClip("redline_mc", 1);
redline_mc.lineStyle(10, 0xFF0000);
redline_mc.lineTo(100, 10);
   
// Blue line appears in front (depth 2)
this.createEmptyMovieClip("blueline_mc", 2);
blueline_mc.lineStyle(10, 0x0000FF);
blueline_mc.lineTo(100, 0);
   
// Green line replaces red line, because it was created at redline_mc's depth
this.createEmptyMovieClip("greenline_mc", redline_mc.getDepth());
greenline_mc.lineStyle(10, 0x00FF00);
greenline_mc.lineTo(100, 10);

See Also

MovieClip.swapDepths( ); Section 13.4

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