Question

Is there any way to control nested MovieClip instances placed on the timeline without naming them through the Properties panel? Are there any unique identifiers I can refer to?

Using instance names (like instance33, instance12, etc.) doesn’t help since names are just properties, but how about references like sprite187_27 (as returned by trace(this) inside a MovieClip on the TimeLine)?

(Using ActionScript3, Automatically declare stage instances disabled)

Answer 1

If [object sprite187_27] is enough in identification, you can just loop through all the objects in your root timeline, like this:

var l:int = this.stage.numChildren;
for (var i:int = 0; i < l; i++)
{
    var instance:DisplayObject = this.getChildAt(i);
    trace(instance.toString()); // will output [object _whatever_]
}

Looping recursively just means checking if instance.numChildren > 0.