Using Director > Writing Scripts with Lingo > Writing Lingo statements > Using messages to identify events |  |

Using messages to identify events

To run the appropriate set of Lingo statements at the right time, Director must determine what is occurring in the movie and which Lingo to run in response to certain events.

Director sends messages to indicate when specific events occur in a movie, such as when sprites are clicked, keyboard keys are pressed, a movie starts, the playback head enters or exits a frame, or a script returns a certain result. Handlers within scripts contain instructions that run when a specific message is received.

Although you can define your own message names (see Defining custom messages), most common events that occur in a movie have built-in message names. See the following categories in the "Lingo by Feature" section of the Lingo Dictionary for the built-in messages that describe events.

| Keyboard and mouse events. See Keyboard events and Mouse events.
| Frame events. See Frame events.
| Browser and Internet events. See Network Lingo.
| Sprite events. See Sprite events.
| Movie in a window (MIAW) events. See Movie in a window events.
| Movie events. See Movie events.
| Synchronizing media events. See Media synchronization.
| Idle events. See Memory management.
| Timeout events. See Time.
| Authoring behavior events. See Authoring behaviors.