Setting x and y co-ordinates

Defining a movieclip's position using only actionscript is essential. And can be used for so many different tasks, game making, website design, logo placement, title placement etc.

Draw out a shape or picture on the stage, make it moderate size and place it anywhere on the stage. Select the whole of the shape/picture you have drawn, right click on it, and convert it in to a movieclip.
In the properties box, give it an instance name of ‘myimage’, without the quotation marks.

Now right click on frame 1, on the first and only layer, and select ‘actions’.
Insert the following actionscript:

myimage.onEnterFrame = function() {
this._x = 253;
this._y = 178;
this._width = 55;
this._height = 55;
};

This tells Adobe Flash that when it enters the frame, the images x (horizontal) co-ordinates is to be set to 253, and its y (vertical)
co-ordinates is to be set to 178.
It also tells flash that the width and height of the image is to be set to 55. If you apply this to a simple shape like a square it should turn out perfect, but changing the width and height of something like a stick figure, will most like distort it. Unless you adjust the height and width settings until you have the desired effect. Obviously for a stick figure you would want the height to be greater than the width otherwise he will be one funny looking stick figure.

The current x and y co-ordinates will place the image in the center of the stage (providing the stage size is set to default). Now test the flash movie and the image will have those exact co-ordinates, height and width properties that were set in the actionscript.

How could something like this be applied to a game? Shooting or car game, when the player dies they are reset back to the set co-ordinates, RPG, when the player reaches a certain point in the game they are taken to new part of the game. The possiblities are endless. Play with the ideas and test them out. There is no exact line of actionscript that will make something happen, there are a number of different ways of writing completely different lines of actionscript, but still having the same effect.