Add a Sound to a Button in Flash - Flash and Animation

In this Flash^R CS5.5 tutorial, we will create an invisible button and place it over some animated ornaments. This button will allow the reader to click any ornament to play a sound file.

We will make a large invisible button that will span over each ornament. This method uses the default four-stage button Timeline. We will also use the controls in the Properties panel to attach the sound file to the button.

Our first step is to import the sound file into the Library (File - Import - Import to Library).

Now we are ready to create the button.

It is common practice to have an actions layer at the top of the Timeline layers and a button layer under that. We will create both layers now but only discuss the button layer.
Create two new layers and name them "actions" and "buttons". These layers should be at the top of the Timeline layers in that order.

A button in Flash is a special type of symbol. We have already encountered one type of Flash symbol called a movie clip when we animated our Xmas ornaments. Let's create a new type of symbol called a button.
Click Frame 1 of the buttons layer and click Insert - New Symbol to open the Create New Symbol dialog box. Name the button ornButton and set the Type to Button. Click OK.

This will take you to the edit mode for the button. As you can see, the button Timeline is different from a movie clip Timeline. The button Timeline only has four frames called Up, Over, Down and Hit. We will discuss these frames in more detail in a later tutorial. For now we will only be working with the Hit frame. This frame is a special type of frame because it designates the size of the clickable area of the button. We tell Flash the size of the clickable area by drawing a rectangle on the stage.
Rename Layer 1 to "ornButton" and add a Keyframe to the Hit frame.
With the Rectangle tool, draw a rectange (any color) that is 1024 pixel wide and 245 pixels high. This is the width of the stage and the height of the larger red ornament. Remember that this button will be invisible, so we are not concerned with the color of the rectangle.
You can set the rectangle's measurements to the exact pixels in the Position and Size section of the Properties panel. Set the X and Y positions to 0.0.
Before we leave the edit mode for the button we need to add the sound file. Add a new layer to the top of the Timeline and name it "sound". Add a Keyframe to the Down frame.
With the Down frame still selected, go to the Sound section of the Properties panel, use the drop-down list to choose the sound file. Keep the other default settings.
Go back to Scene 1 and click on Frame 1 of the buttons layer. Find the ornButton in the Library panel. Drag the ornButton icon from the Library and onto the stage over the ornaments. You will notice that the button is a semi-transparent bluegreen color, indicating that it is an invisible object that will not display on the stage when we preview our project.
In the Properties panel, you will see a text box for the Instance Name. Remove the placeholder text <instance name> with "ornButton".
Test the movie and you will not see the button but when you click on the button area, the sound file will play once.

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