Name
MovieClip._visible Property — whether a clip or movie is shown or hidden
Availability
Flash 4 and later
Synopsis
mc._visible
Access
Read/write
Description
The Boolean _visible
property indicates whether
mc
is currently shown
(true
) or hidden (false
). We
use _visible
as a quick means of hiding a movie
clip or movie from view. Note that hidden clips may still be
controlled via ActionScript and still play, stop, receive events, and
otherwise operate as normal. Hidden clips are simply not displayed on
screen.
The initial value of the _visible
property for all
movie clips is true
, even for movie clips that are
fully transparent or completely off stage. The
_visible
property changes only when deliberately
modified by a script; think of it as a way to programmatically show
and hide clips, not a reflection of all factors such as position and
transparency that can affect a clip’s visibility.
Hiding a movie clip using the _visible
property is
preferred to setting it to fully transparent or moving it off stage
because the Flash Player does not attempt to draw the graphics in
movie clips with _visible
set to
false
, thus improving rendering performance.
Example
The following button code hides the current clip when the button is depressed and reveals it when the button is released:
on (press) { this._visible = false; } on (release) { this._visible = true; }
See Also
MovieClip
._alpha
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