modification needed in scrollbar in flash 8 file

[sandra21]

i am a newbie flash designer. a client has asked me to make modifications in a flash file used on his website. it is flash 8 actionscript. i am currently working on the same and would appreciate your help. the client has given me 'proprietorytools.swf' file which i decompiled using sothink decompiler 4.5 build 90120 to '~proprierarytools original.fla'. the xml folder resides in the same folder as ~proprierarytools original.fla. it contains proprierarytools.xml. you can download these files at http://rapidshare.com/files/252995106/scrollbar_questions.zip

i discovered a problem - if you view 'proprietorytools.swf' - when you click on 'aims', you can see that the scrollbar works perfectly. when you click on advigil, you can see that the scrollbar is faulty. it starts lower than the other links scollbars and has no thumb. the entire text in the xml file is not displayed.

please help me to resolve this problem.

my additional questions are:
has the creator of the swf file use some unique scrollbar code or is this scrollbar provided in flash itself. in this case, i can read a tutorial to understand it better.
is it possible to copy the scrollbar code from the links where it works, to advigil, where it doesnt work
is this an easy bug to resolve or is it difficult?

i have given 'scrollbar works.jpg' and 'scrollbar doesnt work.jpg' to further explain my query.

please tell me if i have explained my problem properly or further clarifications are needed.

[JasonHippy]

In answer to this question:
Take a look at the actionscript on the scroll bar instance at frame 30 on layer 52..
The actionscript says:

onClipEvent (construct)
{
    _targetInstanceName = "txt5";
    horizontal = false;
}

Something struck me as odd while looking at this. The scrollbar in question has an instance name of txt5...Which seems very odd...The scrollbar is targeting itself?? That's not right!

From looking at the other instances of the scrollbar in other frames of the .fla, the other scrollbar instances have no instance name and their _targetInstanceName properties seem to refer to the instance names of the textboxes in the frames.

With this in mind, looking at the instance name of the textbox at frame 30 (layer 54) the instance name of the textbox is "detail_txt5".

So you have two options to fix this...
At frame 30 you can either:
1. Change the text box instance name to "txt5" and remove the scrollbars instance name.
OR
2. Alter the actionscript on the scrollbar to:

onClipEvent (construct)
{
    _targetInstanceName = "detail_txt5";
    horizontal = false;
}

Either way, that will solve your problem and the scrollbar will work.

Cheers for now,
Jas.

[sandra21]

fantastic reply, jasonhippy, you solved my problem completely with a superb easy to understand explanation.