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In this tutorial I show how to create a flash menu using nothing but Actionscript. Creating menus and other flash elements with only Actionscript makes updating, modifying, and experimenting extremely quick and easy.

//Set an Array to store the button names //Push the button names into namesArray

namesArray.push("HOME", "ABOUT", "LICENSE", "SUBMIT", "CONTACT");

//Set an Array to store the button urls

var urlArray:Array = new Array();

//Push the button urls into urlArray

urlArray.push("http://www.flashframer.com",
"http://flashframer.com/about/",
"http://flashframer.com/license/",
"http://flashframer.com/submit/",
"http://flashframer.com/contact/");

//Set a for loop to loop 5 times. 5 referse to the number of buttons

for(i=0;i<5;i++){

//Create a movie clip named i on the next highest level.

this.createEmptyMovieClip("button"+i, this.getNextHighestDepth());

//Create a movie clip named buttonBkg inside the button movie clip on the next highest level.

this["button"+i].createEmptyMovieClip("buttonBkg", this["button"+i].getNextHighestDepth());

//Set the lineStyle for buttonBkg

this["button"+i].buttonBkg.lineStyle(0, 0×000000, 100, true, "none", "square", "round");

//Begin the buttonBkg fill

this["button"+i].buttonBkg.beginFill(0×999999);

]//The lineTo parameters define the shape of the buttonBkg

this["button"+i].buttonBkg.lineTo(99, 0);
this["button"+i].buttonBkg.lineTo(99, 24);
this["button"+i].buttonBkg.lineTo(0, 24);
this["button"+i].buttonBkg.lineTo(0, 0);

//End the fill

this["button"+i].buttonBkg.endFill();

//Set the text formate//Set myFormat parameters//Create a new text field inside the button movie clip on the next highest level and define the x, y, width, and length.

this["button"+i].createTextField("textBox", this["button"+i].getNextHighestDepth(), 0, 2, this["button"+i]._width, this["button"+i]._height);

//Place the name of the button into the textBox from the namesArray defined on line 7

this["button"+i].textBox.text = namesArray[i];

//Set the text formate to the textBox

this["button"+i].textBox.setTextFormat(myFormat);

//Set the X position of the button equal to the last button plus the width of this button plus 5 (5 is the space between each button).
//This move the button over so all the buttons don’t lay on top of each other.

this["button"+i]._x = this["button"+(i-1)]._x + this["button"+i]._width + 5;

//Set the onRelease function to the buttonRelease function

this["button"+i].onRelease = buttonRelease;
}

//Set the buttonRelease function

function buttonRelease(){

//Set a varible named buttonName equal to the instance name of the current button being clicked on

var buttonName:String = this._name;

//Set a varible named buttonIndex equal to the 6th character of the buttons instance name.
//This will return a number between 0 and 5. We will use this to pull the correct url from the urlArray

var buttonIndex = buttonName.substr(6,1);

//get the url from the urlArray of the current button being clicked on. and target a blank window

getURL(urlArray[buttonIndex],"_blank");
}