I see that in an ide like FlashDevelop, when I add an event listener to certain objects, it'll auto-populate with the event strings that this object will dispatch (I'm assuming, anyway). I'd love to do this with my custom objects (esp. when it comes to sharing this code with co-workers), to clear up possible confusion as to what to listen for.
Does anyone know how to discern which events will be dispatched?
Thanks,
I don't think there is a way to link suggestions to a method call as strictly as exists with the inbuilt stuff like addEventListener(), but that shouldn't stop you from producing perfectly readable code for you and your colleagues (especially if you are using FlashDevelop).
For starters, using your own event class with static properties representing the event strings you can use will provide a useful code hint by default:
From here, you can add code comments that work with FlashDevelop to produce a very precise tooltip:
Related
I read the wiki but it's very confusing for me. Can someone explain it in easy language? There are few doubts I have
1. Is capture listener and normal listener are also one of the many listeners provided by scene2D like InputListener, ClickListener etc
What is the difference between target and listener actor?
No, these terms describe whether you've assigned one of the types of listeners as a capture listener or not. Capture listeners allow an actor a chance to reject an event on one of its descendents. For example, some kind of group widget can decide whether to reject presses on a button that is in it based on some criteria. I think the built-in ScrollPane class uses this to prevent buttons and sliders from being manipulated while the view is being scrolled. Most people will not have a reason to use this, as it is for custom widgets that have very particular behavior.
Target and listener actors are usually the same. The listener actor is the actor you attached the listener to, and by default it will also be the target. But you can change the target actor to something else. This is just a feature to allow you to create listeners with custom behavior. Most people will not have a use for this. I don't even think it is used by any of the built-in classes.
The complexities of the listener system were designed to get button and widgets to react to input like a traditional UI. Unless you are designing widgets with customized input behavior, you only need
ChangeListener for the UI widgets (buttons and sliders).
If you're using Scene2D for stuff other than UI (the game scene) you'll subclass InputListener to react to touches. Or maybe GestureListener.
I built a small game using Scene2D and found that it is a bit clumsy for non-UI stuff. I wouldn't do it again, personally. So I would say 99% of people making simple games should only ever use ChangeListener.
The action system is nice for tweening stuff, but you can just add actions to the stage root and react to them externally with your own non-actor classes.
I've found some stuff online about how to animate in actionscript 3 from within a class, but haven't been able to find a really good tutorial. I want to control the animations from a class because at some point I intend to move from the flash IDE to using flash develop, where I won't have access to the Flash IDE's timeline.
I have to be able to control an initial animation (opening a bag) which joins onto an animation loop (searching through a bag).
The only way I have been able to do this so far is to add an event listener to listen for the initial animation's final frame. Then when initialAnimation.currentFrameLabel = "Last" then I gotoAndStop("animationLoop").
This has been working fine, if a bit time-consuming. I'm just wondering if there's a better, easier way to do it? Can anyone tell me or point me towards a tutorial that does it better? Thanks very much!
Romano
I recommend instead of using an event listener, you use the method addFrameScript. Essentially you can fire a method when a specific frame number is reached.
Read the following question for more information.
actionscript3 whats the point of addFrameScript
It depends on what it is you want to do:
Usually if you are working together with an artist or want to do animations that are non-code driven, the "best way" is usually to listen for something to happen, and then start animations and on last frame of animation (or when you want to return control to code) you create an event, or use a callback or something else to let code notify that animation is complete or reached a certain point.
If you want to do something from code, the easiest way is to use an external animation library.
Tweener (https://code.google.com/p/tweener/)
TweenLite (http://www.greensock.com/tweenlite/)
Using those libraries, you would write something similar to:
function fadeOut():void {
mc.alpha = 1;
Tweener.addTween(mc, {alpha:0, time:0.275, delay:1, onComplete:onDone});
}
function onDone():void {
trace("Animation finished");
}
How would someone go about coding a 'window'? I'm starting to make a GUI, and I want to learn how to code one. One that can be skinnable, and one that actually loops and creates itself at runtime. I understand that this might be a bit vague, so I'll add details.
One that actually 'creates' itself. Most GUI tutorials I've looked on depends on an 'image' that just gets added on the screen. I want to be able to use skins in my windows. One where my 'skin' is just a collection of 'borders'. Then when I insert window.create(50,50) where 50,50 is my height, width, It would just create that window, following the skin.
I understand that it probably follows just like when a language draws a rectangle, it just follows a different set of rules (maybe?). However, for all my Google-fu skills I cannot find a tutorial that teaches me this.
Please Help. I didn't include the language I used as you can see, because I believe I just need to know how to create one. Anyway though, I am using Actionscript 3. A tutorial would be just fine, or even A SINGLE CLASS THAT HAS THIS FUNCTIONALITY, I'll just study the code. Or if you know one, maybe a whole book about GUI and programming it :D
Pure As3.0 GUI coding is quite troublesome. I try to Googling, but not come out well. anyway for my case, i generate using a SWC, and Class Mapping and Customizing. but i'm not sure best way. in other way i use a bit101 library. this is gives me want Window, Charts, Componets easily of high abstraction. see the below image.
It can be pretty hard and complicated to do, or very easy, it just depends on how flexible your solution should be. You need firstly to design a structure of your program and approach to the problem.
I like to go from the image of how it should look like from API point of view. I think I would create a GUI element like this:
var wholeGui:MyGUI = new MyGUI();
var window:IGuiElement = new GuiWindow(dataObject, skinObject);
wholeGui.addElement(window);
So what would you need?
1) Object that would manage all GUI elements. Why? Simply because your GUI elements shouldn't be destroyed by themselves if user will click "X" on your little window. The wholeGui object would manage them and listen for any events including those that would destroy them. You may consider creating custom events for interaction between the wholeGui object and your window object if this interaction is going to be complicated.
2) Interface for your GUI objects. Some problem here is that AS3 actually doesn't have interface for Sprite, and you would like to interact with it like with extended Sprite. The workaround here is to have in this interface a declaration like this:
function asSprite():Sprite;
And your implementation in GuiWindow would look like this:
public function asSprite():Sprite {
return this;
}
And your GuiWindow class should extend Sprite of course. Then you would have access to it's Sprite properties and methods by writing for example: window.asSprite.startDrag();
This interface should give you abilities that you need to operate on your GUI element.
3) Class for your GUI element, in this example GuiWindow.
4) Class for your data that would be injected into your element. If you would load data dynamically, and from some location, you would need to deal with the situation when no data can be provided - but that logic would be inside your window.
5) Class for your skin - so you would be able to dynamically create a skin object and use it to create your window in a way you want.
That's just few thoughts to consider.
PS. It may be good idea to fill GuiWindow object with data AFTER creating it, and not in constructor, as you would be able to visualize loading process then.
if we open lot of popup during browsing(web) or in an AIR application, how remove them at once?
I don't think there's really a call for removing all pop-ups with the pop-up manager. I think you would need to keep a reference to each instance in a list and call PopUpManager.removePopUp for each one. Honestly though it's probably not a good idea to have a ton of pop-ups (in terms of user experience) there may be a case for it but I would definitely take some time to consider if it's the best option really.
EDIT:
You could also consider extending PopUpManager and maintain an internal collection, it looks like PopUpManager uses PopUpManagerImpl and doesn't seem to expose the impl property it uses for delegating the actual work so you'd probably need to extend both. But you could then use the PopUpManagerImpl.mx_internal::popupInfo which is an array that has objects that have a property called owner that seems like it would be what you'd want to supply to the calls to removePopUp.
Add all popups in array when u create it. And remove all popups
var popupCollection:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection;
var mypopup:IFlexDisplayObject;
PopUpManager.centerPopUp(mypopup=PopUpManager.createPopUp(this,popupWindow));
popupCollection.addItem(mypopup);
u can remove all popup using loop
PopUpManager.removePopUp(popupCollection[index] as IFlexDisplayObject);
I just started to study the Model View Controller pattern. I now understand the basic usage of MVC, but when i tried to implement MVC in a simple test, i ran into a problem. Ofcoarse I could easily adjust the code so it works, but I wish to learn how to correctly implement the MVC pattern.
The test:
I used actionscript 3 to make a simple program. It consist of a turret, and a mouseclick. The turret is in the middle of the screen. When I click anywhere the turret rotates towards the point where I clicked. Both the mouse and the turret have their own model,view and controller. When I click, the MouseModel changes correctly. But for the actual TurretView to respond, the TurretModel must change its rotation variable and send out an event.
The question is who responds to the MouseModel event?
/------->MouseControl------\
/ \
MouseView ?<---MouseModel
TurretView <------------------TurretModel
TurretControl
I figured its best not to have MouseModel directly influence TurretModel or TurretControl, because this would require them to be an eventListener. Making TurretView listen to the MouseModel, and then tell TurretControl to adjust TurretModel, after wich TurretView can update trough a TurretModel event looks like a lot of extra code for a simple task. Also I'd rather not have MouseControl affect TurretModel, this would break the flexibility of the mouse as input for future classes.
Ow, also in which class do I put the code for the angle calculation?
Thanks in advance
Remember that the goal with MVC is primarily the separation of Model and View, and the Controller can serve as the communicator between the two.
Unless you are planning on storing each action that occurs (clicking, rotating, etc.), there is no real need for an action (in this situation) to send data to the Model. Everything you'd like to do should be easily handled with the Controller. So the flow would be:
Mouse click
Event is fired to trigger a command (in the Controller), passing along the mouse location
The command calculates the turret's rotation
The command tells the View to rotate the turret
This is, of course, my suggestion based off of your example. In truth, depending on the project, the above flow could easily change (for instance, in this situation it seems good to do rotation calculation in the command, but in other situations that may not make as much sense). Look at MVC as a goal - you're trying to separate these elements as much as possible, but there is no 100% "works-every-time" way to do it.
Robotlegs, a popular MVC framework, has a great diagram on their site showing how they tackled MVC:
http://www.robotlegs.org/diagram/
I'm not advertising that you NEED to use Robotlegs (it's good, but there's plenty of other alternatives), but they definitely made a pretty diagram :)
You should have one model, which then has pieces in it that you are currently calling MouseModel and TurretModel. You can either keep those names and breakdowns, or do something else once you have a better "handle" on what needs to be done.
The View that is tracking the mouse clicks should dispatch an event that your Controller component catches to update the TurretModel (at this point, there's probably no need for a MouseModel). Your TurretView can then update itself based on the TurretModel, or the Controller can update the TurretView based on the new value. This will depend on how you have it wired.
Usin a Framework such as Robotlegs can help you figure out all the ins and outs of this process, and I've heard that this book http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920021216.do provides a great explanation of MVC, even if you don't choose to use Robotlegs after you read it.