How do I disable the seek bar in the skin of a .swf movie?

Well, I've spent hours with this and I'm stumped and pissed off. I've opened up the .fla file of the skin you're using and it seems like it should be really easy to get at the seekBar movie clip to be able to turn it off and on:

Inside  ArcticExternalPlaySeekMute.fla

is layout_mc.seekBar_mc.

Okay, so I'm expecting to see layout_mc on the FLVPlaybackComponent instance on stage (I'm calling mine "player" for simplicity).

Here are all the properties on the player instance:

_seekBar:undefined
_cuePoints:null
_cpMgr:[object Object]
_vpState:[object Object]
_vp:_level0.player.0
_topVP:0
_visibleVP:0
_activeVP:0
_uiMgr:[object Object]
_firstStreamShown:false
_firstStreamReady:false
_preSeekTime:-1
_scaleY:100
_scaleX:100
_origWidth:480
__width:480
_origHeight:360
__height:360
_bufferingBarHides:false
_transform:null
_progressInterval:250
_playheadUpdateInterval:250
_seekToPrevOffset:1
_idleTimeout:300000
dispatchQueue:[type Function]
dispatchEvent:[type Function]
removeEventListener:[type Function]
addEventListener:[type Function]
_volume:100
_totalTime:0
_skinAutoHide:false
_skin:ArcticExternalPlaySeekMute.swf
_aspectRatio:true
_isLive:false
_contentPath:testMovie.flv
_bufferTime:0.1
_autoSize:false
_autoRewind:true
_autoPlay:true
skin_mc:_level0.player.skin_mc
0:_level0.player.0
boundingBox_mc:_level0.player.boundingBox_mc


First of all, notice that _seekBar is undefined. Crap.

There is no mention of layout_mc. Well, okay, that's understandable, because that's contained inside the skin's SWF, not inside the FLVPlayback class that this component implements.

Next, we notice that there's a skin_mc property and it points to level0.player.skin_mc movieClip. Perfect! I'm expecting that sucker to open up like Pandora's legs and reveal all her secrets.

So, let's trace out the contents of player.skin_mc...

Nothing. Crap crap crap. Why is it empty? It's a danged MovieClip, with lots of children, it should be populated....

So after a couple more hours, I discover there's this uiMgr object that is an instance of the UIManager class. Let's trace out its properties...

_progressPercent:0
_skinAutoHideIntervalID:0
_bufferingOn:false
_bufferingDelayInterval:1000
_bufferingDelayIntervalID:0
_volumeBarScrubTolerance:0
_volumeBarInterval:250
_volumeBarIntervalID:0
_seekBarScrubTolerance:5
_seekBarInterval:250
_seekBarIntervalID:0
border_mc:undefined
layout_mc:undefined
skinLoader:[object Object]
skin_mc:_level0.player.skin_mc
customClips:undefined
controls:
_isMuted:false
cachedSoundLevel:100
_lastVolumePos:0
_lastScrubPos:0
_controlsEnabled:true
_bufferingBarHides:false
__visible:false
_skinReady:false
_skinAutoHide:false
_skin:ArcticExternalPlaySeekMute.swf
_vc:_level0.player

Promising. It knows the name of the _skin that we're using, and it too has a skin_mc object.

Okay, let's trace out player._uiMgr.skin_mc....

no properties. Crap!

I also notice that layout_mc is undefined at this time... weird.

Then I notice this skinLoader object and it gets me thinking: maybe the reason everything is tracing out undefined at this time is because I need to wait until the skin has actually loaded before accessing properties on it.

This actually met with some success:

var listenerObject:Object = new Object();
listenerObject.skinLoaded = function(eventObj:Object):Void {
    var obj = eventObj.target.skin_mc.seekBar_mc;
      
      for (var i in obj){
            trace(i + ":" + obj[i]);
      }
      
      obj.handle_mc._alpha = 0;
      obj.progress_mc._alpha = 0;
};

player.addEventListener("skinLoaded", listenerObject);

With the code above you can see that we are now seeing all these properties and can access the seekBar_mc. But you can't set its _alpha to 0 and _visible doesn't work.

Now the best I was able to do was to set the alpha on the handle and the progress, but the "groove" is still there. You could theoretically edit the FLA, create a custom skin that doesn't have the groove and the seekbar will be effectively hidden. But I don't know whether it will still accept mouse events, so it may not actually be disabled.

That's it. I'm spent. I don't know what else to do. I've even tried extending the FLVPlayback component, but to no avail.

You might want to follow these tutorials, and see if they're any use:
http://nerdabilly.com/2007/03/26/disabling-the-flvplayback-components-controls-including-seekbar/
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=761894

Let me know if any of my research turns on the lightbulb for you and you crack this nut. This has become personal!

grrr.