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Movie clips are self-contained miniature SWF files that run independently of each other and the Timeline that contains them. For example, if the main Timeline has only one frame and a movie clip in that frame has ten frames, each frame in the movie clip plays when you play the main SWF file. A movie clip can, in turn, contain other movie clips, or nested clips. Movie clips nested in this way have a hierarchical relationship, where the parent clip contain one or more child clips.
Every movie clip instance has a name, called its instance name, that uniquely identifies it as an object that can be controlled with ActionScript. Specifically, the instance name identifies it as an object of the MovieClip class type. You use the properties and methods of the MovieClip class to control the appearance and behavior of movie clips at runtime.
You can think of movie clips as autonomous objects that can respond to events, send messages to other movie clip objects, maintain their state, and manage their child clips. In this way, movie clips provide the foundation of component-based architecture in Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004. In fact, the components available in the Components panel (Window > Development Panels > Components) are sophisticated movie clips that have been designed and programmed to look and behave in certain ways. For information on creating components, see Using Components.
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