I've got a text field inside a movieclip and I'm messing around with the alpha
of the movie clip, having the clip fade in. But the alpha of the text field
doesn't respond to this at all, it stays visible even though everything else in
the clip is at 0% What gives?

I've had this problem before..... and as far as I know, you cannot actually
fade dynamic text. I havent done much research on it though. However here is
one of my solutions.

in your scripts layer, or in a seperate layer, put in
_root.path.to.my.textfield._visible = false;. then at the end of the animation
just put _root.path.to.my.textfield._visible = true;. I know its not as pretty.
but it works well if the rollout sequence for the interface has enough
substance.

or, lets create a new idea where on a white background you have a text field
with black text, on top of it you have a white box, do the fade sequence on the
white box and it will appear as if the text is fading in and out. however, with
the more complex your background is the harder it is to create this effect.

Although I have never tried it my self, assign some dynamic text a transparent
value. If that does work, you can create an interval that fades the text in
using actionscript directly. If you need some help structuring the code for
this, just ask and I will be glad to help.

Alex- the white box over the top was my first try, and I actually did that for
part of this thing : )

Unfortunately this part of the design will be fading in over an image, so it's
not as feasible to use a color.

Since I'm feeding this textfield with a txt file- how would I go about giving
some of the text an alpha value? Because it's being fed in as a variable,
wouldn't it already be as a simple string that wouldn't be parsed?

actually, when I told you about the alpha channeled text I had gone in and made
a dynamic text field and asigned it a 50% alpha level inthe color mixer.
However, I didnt test it in the swf, although on the stage it appeared
transparent, the second I published it the text became full 100% white, even
when tested at 1% alpha. So I think the verdict is a whole new Idea.

Check it.

Hide your text on layer 2 (_root.pathtotext._visible = false;)
Load your JPG on layer 1
Load the identicle JPG on layer 3
Fade out JPG on layer 3.

Innovate, adapt and overcome.
Alex Fex