How do I play an animation in a symbol only when I want it to?

[chadm1980278]

So I'm pretty new to animate and I couldn't find the answer to this anywhere.

I'm using ActionScript 3.0 and I'm just making a little animation video. I have a pair of eyes as a graphic symbol and they have 4 keyframes where they blink. I want them to stay on the first frame (open) until I want the keyframes to play. Once the keyframes play and the eyes blink, I want them to return to the first frame until I have them blink again. How can I do this? Is there a way to do this in the program or will I need to use code?

Thanks in advance.

[Joseph Labrecque · Accepted solution]

You will need to use code, yes. First provide an instance name through the Properties panel with the instance selected upon the stage. Then you can control the playhead of that instance through commands like play and stop. See the Code Snippets panel for some starter code: Window > Code Snippets