Animated line showing route from one button to the next in flash 8

Hi
here is an tutorial that will do what you want:)

The Drawing API

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/actionscript/tricks/drawing_api.htm

Regards,
Ramy

It should be possible but I can only give a rough idea on how it would be done since I myself haven't touched the drawing API (but i know what it can do from reading tutorials and stuff). Basically you'd have some sort of global object that would keep track of the last button clicked (particularly the location). When the next button is clicked, you'd have a call to the global object to check if a previous button was clicked and if so, draw a line from 1 point to the other. Another thing I would suggest is to store the line MCs in an array so that you can delete them later on when needed (like when you implement a "clear lines" button).

What you'll be needing is a class (let's call it LineController) that would have functions which the buttons on stage would call.
class LineController{
       private var prevx:Number;
       private var prevy:Number;
       private var newx:Number;
       private var newy:Number;
       private var prevclick:Boolean; //used to determine if there was a click before
       private var lineArray:Array; //container for all our lines
       private var lineCounter:Number; //used for counting how many lines we have

       function LineController(){
              prevclick = false;
              lineArray = new Array();
              lineCounter = 0;
       }

       function btnClicked(int x, int y):Void{
              if(!prevclick){
                     prevx = x;
                     prevy = y;
                     prevclick = true;
              }else{
                     newx = x;
                     newy = y;
                     DrawLine();
              }
       }

       function DrawLine():Void{
              //using the coordinates stored, we draw the line from prev points to new points then add the movieclip to the array

              //increment the lineCounter
              lineCounter++
              //this one is for assuming you want a connect the dots function instead of connect 2 dots only
              prevx = newx;
              prevy = newy;
       }

       function ClearLines():Void{
              for(var i = 0; i<lineArray.length; i++){
                     lineArray[i].unloadMovie();
              }
       }
}

1st fram of your _root timeline, you'd have something like this:
_global.lcontrol = new LineControl();

Then your buttons would have this:
on(release){
       _global.lcontrol.btnClicked(this._x, this._y);
}

You'll just have to fill in the drawing part since I'm not that familiar with it ^-^; Chances are that you'll also have to be careful with the array since I have a feeling that it could get buggy...

--trigger-happy

Okie surfjoe let's make a simple point to point


supose u have 2

but1
but2

Supose the start point begins from but1

on the frame

var startpoint_x = but1._x + (but1._height/2)
var startpoint_y = but1._y + (but1._width/2)

now, on the button make a event

on(release)
{
      this.createEmptyMovieClip ("new_line", 1)
      with (new_line)
      {
               lineStyle (1, 0xFFFFFF, 50); // define the line
            moveTo (startpoint_x,startpoint_y); // put the start of the line at the position
            lineTo ( but2._x + (but2._height/2), but2._y + (but2._width/2)); // draw the line
      }
}