flash website design

[CoffeeChef]

I am designing a website with Flash CS3, using actionscript 2.0. I am reasonably comfortable with actionscript, but not an expert.

I have a main timeline containing my basic page layout with buttons linking to my other pages.
My other pages load as swf files when the appropriate button is clicked.
I want to be able to load one swf over the previous one for page transitions.

My two problems are not being able to access the timeline of the loaded swf, and as mentioned, not being able to load a swf over a still visible swf.

I've tried every method I could find for a few days now, including Loader components and countless actionscript variations.

Any help or direction to some tutorials would be appreciated.
Thanks.

[HI2Japan]

Do you want the loaded movie to take the place of the current movie when the button is clicked? I can't think of what the command is off the top of my head (I want to say LoadMovie but cant remember and I'm at work so cant check it out) in which you specify what layer you want to load the movie into and if you set the parameter to 0 it will replace the current movie.

[CoffeeChef]

I want the swf that is loading to load over the current one, while it is still visible.
It should seem that the swf is sliding over the one already visible.

[HI2Japan]

I think a parameter of 1 with the LoadMovie actionscript will load it above the current movie without wiping out the timeline of the original movie.

[CoffeeChef]

Thanks, I've managed to work around most issues, I can get swfs to load over others, only as movie clips.
My problem now is how to access the timeline of the loaded movieclip, play an animation, and then load the new movie over the current one.
Most of my efforts result in my code ignoring the call to the loaded (not the root) timeline, and just loading the new clip over the old.

[HI2Japan]

Please clarify. So your page design is a flash object with buttons. When you click a button, you want a movie to come in to only do a transition and nothing more. Or do you want the new movie to stay for the duration until they click another link to take them to another movie?

If the idea is to have a transition when they click a button, why not just incorporate all of that into different scenes within the original flash movie and set your buttons to jump to the different scenes. The first frame of the scene will look that same as the page with the buttons and set a motion tween to moridy it however you want.

[CoffeeChef]

Thanks for all.
This is a good lesson for me to lay out my site better next time.
I will put it on different scenes.

I was making things too difficult.

Tunnel vision....

Thanks again.