I'm having a issue in AS3 with using MovieClip(root.this).
So I have a MovieClip called Slime and I have code inside of slime.idle in the 1rst frame. The code is: MovieClip(root.this).gotoAndStop(2);
For some reason that will not work and does not make the slime go to frame 2. I don't want to do MovieClip(root).gotoAndStop(2); because I have more than 1 slime in the stage that I do not want all of them going to frame 2. That is why I need to use MovieClip(root.this). Does anyone know my problem and how to fix it? Thank you.
MovieClip(root.this) is not valid syntax for multiple reasons. I don't think this behaves how you think; this refers to the object that the script belongs to and cannot be used the way you are trying to use it.
Are you trying to target a specific "slime" to go to frame 2 within its own timeline? In that case you just need to call gotoAndStop() on a reference to that specific slime. For example: MovieClip(root).slime123.gotoAndStop(2). How you get the reference depends on your current code and display structure.
If your code is within the "slime" symbol timeline, you can make it go to frame 2 without referring to root at all, because this is already the target you want. For example: this.gotoAndStop(2) (or gotoAndStop(2); this is usually optional).
If you post more code and explain what you thought this should refer to, I can help more.
Related
I've run to a problem. I've got a SWF that is divided into frames.
What I'm trying to do, is switch to one of my frames which has actionscript code, but I just want the visual elements to be displayed, without executing the actionscript code it contains.
I am trying to switch to this frame using gotoAndStop("frame-name");
I've tried to add a boolean value to the code in this frame, that decides whether or not it gets executed, I set the value the first time that frame's actionscript is executed, but this value is ignored as if using gotoAndStop
creates a new instance of that frame's actionscript code, so it doesn't retain the boolean value I set.
Is there any way to not allow actionscript execution of this frame?
Nope, not really, at least not given how the solution 'seems' to work!
What you can do is to create another keyframe (f6 in editor I think) that looks identical and then do gotoAndStop("other_frame").
As long as that keyframe doesn't have any code you're good to go :)
The most common solution for flash-development is to not have code inside your fla-file and instead have it in AS-files and only have visual elements inside the fla. That way you have full control of what is happening and when etc...
So its like I want a code just for frame 2. Is there any other way other than just going to frame 2 and typing in the Actions Panel? For example I am using a class called supportForce and I want a part of the code to apply only for frame 2. This might be stupid but just in order to get a doubt cleared I asked this question, forgive me if I am wasting your time. Thanks in advance.
Sure, simply write your code from the parent scope of supportForce inside a statement such as this one:
if(supportForce.currentFrame == 2) { //DO MAGIC ON FRAME 2! }
I have been writing a game in timeline code. I want the different frames (rooms) in the game to be able to share information between each other. Of course, timeline code is limited to the frame it is written in.
After doing quite a bit of reading ("Foundation Game Design with Flash" and a number of articles, tutorials, forums etc) I decided to employ a document class. This did not work either. It seems it only works for frame one but not the rest of the frames (I have four).
How can I have frame four respond to something that happpened in frame one? For example, if the player achieves something in frame one, I want a movie clip in frame four to be visible.
If You are writing your code on the timeline, My suggestion would be to create two layers in the timeline, one for 'frame-actions' - in this layer you insert the code specific to a single frame (will work when the movieclip is stopped on that particular frame).. And also create one more layer called global-actions (for the entire timeline). Only the first frame will be a key frame and there should be empty frames till the end of the timeline.
In this layer actions write the code that you want to access from any keyframe in the same timeline.
If you define a variable in the actions which are written for the whole timeline (global-actions) then that will be available on all the frames.
Now if you want to go to a different frame based on some action, just write some functions in the layer which contains global actions and call that particular function through the frame actions. To go to a different frame use the 'gotoAndStop(frameNumber)' function of flash.
I want to tell you that while it will work, I would not recommend using it in this way.
HTH.
You can use static variables - these are variables which are linked to a class, rather than an instance of it.
Suppose your document class was called Document.as, and you wanted a variable, playerLives, to be visible from any part of the program.
Declare it inside Document.as:
public static var playerLives:int = 3;
You can then reference this directly from anywhere else in your code with:
Document.playerLives
(note that the variable is a member of the class itself, not an instance of it).
You could use a dedicated Statics class to hold these variables if you want to keep your document neat, or attach them to the relevant classes (eg Player.lives)
I've not used timeline/frames for some years but I believe this is how I used to do it!
NB Statics will be fine for your purposes but they are, in some ways, an equivalent to the _global variable in AS2 (at least, they can be used in the same manner) - many would not approve of their use, or over-use, as they are freely accessible from anywhere in your program (thus anathema to the OO concept of encapsulation), but personally I try not to worry about it in small cases - the most important thing to know about the rules of any design pattern is when they can be broken!
They are also slightly slower to access than instance members, but you won't notice this unless you are constantly accessing/changing them (making things like player velocity, which will need to be referenced/changed every frame, static, is not a good idea).
Hope this helps.
You may find the simplest way to link everything with the document class is to move your four frames into a movieclip together and have that on the first frame, then interact with that movieclip.
E.g. in the document class, where the movieclip instance on the timeline is called 'game'.
game.gotoAndStop(4);
game.objectToDisplay.visible = true;
If you encounter reference errors in the IDE then you can avoid these by using [] notation to refer to the properties of game, e.g. game["objectToDisplay"].visible = true;
Note that it's not really best practice to do this, but it will at least help you to finish that first game which is really more important at this stage in your learning. Afterwards, if you want to learn more then I'd recommend "The Essential Guide to Flash Games" by Jeff Fulton from 8bitrocket.com - it will teach you how to use the document class effectively.
Say I have this specific button class in Flash called cont_button and it's supposed to be used to break out of a loop, but I want to use the class more than once. Is there a way to give every instance of this class some kind of parameter so that it knows which frame it nees to go to?
Example:
I have an instance of cont_button on frame 200 and there's a loop between 200 and 210. This cont_button executes a gotoAndPlay(211). But later on I have another instance of the button on frame 315 and a loop between 315 and 325. Is there a way to make it so each instance knows which frame it specifically needs to go to via the use of a variable? Or am I going to have to make an actionscript file for each individual one?
Pretty new to ActionScript so I appreciate the help and if there are good coding references to AS3 you guys recommend, I'll gladly look those over.
Sure, this is possible. One way you can do this is make the frame numbers class variables and when the button is clicked, they reference whatever value is stored in them, rather then hardcoded numbers. To get a better idea, can you post the relevant parts of your button class?
As you say, you need to pass a parameter to each instance of the button. There are lots of different ways you could do this, but I'd be tempted to just do it via the instance names.
You could name each button loopBreakTo211, loopBreakTo326 and so on, then in your button's class have:
var breakFrame:Number = Number(name.replace("loopBreakTo", ""));
(parent as MovieClip).gotoAndPlay(breakFrame);
Admittedly that's not a very robust way of doing it (for example, it will break if a button is named incorrectly and breakFrame ends up as NaN, so you might want to add a check for that), but it keeps the parameter together with the instance instead of in the timeline somewhere.
Okay, so I've been busting my hump the last week or so on this project for my OOP/AS3 course and this past Sunday I realized that my approach wasn't going to work so I scrapped the better part of it and started over.
Our assignment is to create an XML based flash menu that demonstrates an understanding of the OOP patterns we've just learned. It was kind of a 'test the waters' project where he gave us a ton of tutorials and information and told us to make our best attempt at making sense of it so I'm certain there are more efficient ways to do what I'm doing, but that's a moot point.
We need to employ at least two patterns in our menu, though at the moment I'm just focusing on MVC so that I can get the mainUI working before I finalize the second part of the UI. It essentially flows like so:
MainUI has 4 menus that slide out.
Each slider has 3 thumbnails on it.
Clicking on any of the thumbnails will move to the next part of the UI. This functionality is currently disabled.
The program runs with 0 compiler errors, but the images are not being placed on the stage correctly and I can't figure out why. All the image paths are being pulled and stored from the XML properly. The main background image is pulled once and is supposed to be only placed once (if statement that uses a count to determine whether to run the placement function or not), but it is being placed 4 times with the sliding menu image. The sliders are being placed in the correct positions (switch statement that iterates through the mainUI function in the View class and creates a separate loader for each one), but the thumbnails are not all showing up. So here is what I'm seeking help with:
The mainPanel image should only be placed once, rather than 4 times with each slider.
The sliders, while being placed correctly, must be tweened in different directions through the as (using TweenMax), but each instance is unidentifiable from the other so right now they all have an eventListener that calls the same tween method. How can I distinguish them in a way that lets me apply a different tween to each (This will likely be a concern with the thumbnail functionality later as I will need to load different XML data based on which thumb is clicked).
I have added what I hope are very informative comments to each script so hopefully people can help. Also included are images of what I want the mainUI to eventually look like and how it's coming out currently.
pastebin with all 3 classes and XML (2 hyperlink limit) - http://pastebin.com/u/crookedparadigm
top image is how the stage is outputting, bottom image is what I'd like to to be - http://imgur.com/a/bOmsS
Last quick note, stage is currently set to 600x480 with a black background. Ideally, to reinforce OOP principles, our professor wants us to avoid using the timeline or library if possible.
Any advice at all will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Install FlexPMD This is a very good add on( sometimes hard to install ) It basically is used to show areas of your code that you are not following standards. For example your classes lack the use of "this". And you should avoid passing parameters in constructors. It would be good practice to develop standardized writing skills while you are still new.
Looking at your code I see you are calling buildUI from within a loop.
buildUI is assigning a MainView object to mainUI.
So each time you go through a loop iteration you are reassigning mainUI.
In the end mainUI will only be the last iteration of that loop.
Not sure this is your issue but is an issue.
[EDIT]
Excellent Singleton guide for Flex SDK
Part 1
Part 2
Some Good writing on pure AS3 Singletons.
I would prolly start from scratch as your XML data is miss formatted.
your XML should resemble something like this.
<MainProject>
<MainUI>
<Thumbnail Name="Spring">
<Destination Name="Spring" Price="99" ratingPath="images/SP1/SP1rating.png" />
</Thumbnail>
<Thumbnail Name="Winter">
<Destination Name="Winter" Price="152" ratingPath="images/SP1/SP2rating.png" />
</Thumbnail>
</MainUI>
</MainProject>
Then you should have the following structure on your stage. These movieclips should be empty and already placed inside on your stage with instance name.
Stage
MenuUI MovieClip
ThumbNail1 MovieClip <- feed it thumbnail from the XML
ThumbNail2 MovieClip <- feed it thumbnail from the XML
ThumbNail3 MovieClip <- feed it thumbnail from the XML
ThumbNail4 MovieClip <- feed it thumbnail from the XML
This might be a bit too vague, just tell me if you need more details.
Hope this helps !