Adding a link to a Button in Flash/Actionscript

Question

How do I make a link on a button which is in a Flash movie clip?

Answer 1

Assuming your button has an instance name of "myButton", on the frame where your button is in the timeline, you'll add the following (or similar) Actionscript.

AS2

myButton.onPress = function()
{
   getURL("http://stackoverflow.com", "_blank");
}

AS3

import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.net.URLRequestMethod;

myButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onMouseClick);
function onMouseClick(event:MouseEvent):void
{
   var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest("http://stackoverflow.com");
   request.method = URLRequestMethod.GET;
   var target:String = "_blank";
   navigateToURL(request, target);
}

Backwards compatible getURL for AS3

/**
 * Backwards compatibility for global getURL function.
 *
 * @param url     Url to go to.
 * @param method  'get' or 'post'.
 * @param target  Window target frame [ex. '_blank'].
 */
public static function getURL(url:String, target:String = '_blank', method:String = 'get'):void
{
    method = method.toUpperCase();
    target = target.toLowerCase();

    if (method != URLRequestMethod.POST && method != URLRequestMethod.GET) method = URLRequestMethod.GET;
    if (target != "_self" && target != "_blank" && target != "_parent" && target != "_top") target = "_blank";
    var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
    request.method = method;
    navigateToURL(request, target);
}

Note that in both AS2 and AS3 you could write this code in a class and set the class as the export class for your button/movieclip. This is probably a bit more complex though.