removeMovieClip

The function removeMovieClip in Flash is (in theory) supposed to be the opposite of attachMovie - it lets you remove a movieclip from the stage. There are only two catches. It will not work when:

1. The movieclip is placed manually on stage (so not using attachMovie)
2. If you happen to attach the movieclip to getNextHighestDepth()

So you can either hardcode the depth into which you want to load the movieclip, or you can create a colourful algorithm for finding an appropriate depth, or you can use swapDepths() to put the movieclip in an accepted depth before removing it. You can also use the DepthManager (which, according to its documentation, you need not use unless you are an advanced Flash developer), but this can only be used if you have a component on stage or in library, which makes sense in the Macromedia-world, because it is when using components that getNextHighestDepth() makes removeMovieClip() fail silently. One can only wonder what getNextHighestDepth() uses to determine the next highest depth, and why it does not use DepthManager when required. But hey, who needs working functions when there are so many workarounds to choose between?

It's all documented without shame in the LiveDocs. Losers who use the help content following Flash however, will have to figure it out by themselves.

posted by ballerina @ 5:56 pm