Having difficulty in understanding ActionScript 3 Timer class - actionscript-3

Question

I'm trying to make a dice game in Flash/ActioScript 3. I did all the essentials and it works smoothly. Now I want to improve the user experience. For instance, when it's computer's turn (to roll and do things according to die value) I want to animate the die. The die has 6 keyframes. So, for, say, 2 seconds the die will loop those 6 frames then it will stop on a value (depending on random generator). Somehow I can't do it as I want. How can I write a function(s) so that when I say,
animateDice()
it will do nothing but just animate the dice for a specified interval?
Update:
var timer:Timer = new Timer(10, 50);
myButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onClick);
timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, animateDice);
function onClick(event: Event):void {
timer.start();
}
function animateDice(event: Event):void {
dice.play();
}
For instance, I don't understand why the above code doesn't work properly. It does work properly on first click, but not there after.
Update 2: I guess I'm still having problems. How do I suspend the running code until the timer stops? (Yes there is a work around---putting timer handlers inside other timers, etc. Is there an easy way?
Maybe, this will help:
First we see the die rolling (and a message box informs the user that the game will decide whom starts). Then it's either Human's or Computer's turn. When it's computer's turn, first we see the rolling die again for, say, 1 second. Then it stops and and we see the outcome. I'm a beginner and I nay be missing something, but from what I see it seems that all these simple steps (just showing the die rolling for some time) means lots and lots of lines.
If I use a simple timer for die animation, the script continues and the whole show goes away.

Answer 1

The timer object has three properties:
delay, or how often the event should fire
repeatCount, or how many times the event should fire
currentCount, or how many times the timer's event has fired thus far
You are creating the timer with new Timer(10, 50), which sets delay to 10 and repeatCount to 50. This means that, once you call timer.start(), timer will fire TimerEvent.TIMER every 10 milliseconds. Each time it is fired, it adds 1 to currentCount. When currentCount is greater than or equal to repeatCount (50), it stops looping the timer.
Once your timer has stopped, if you call timer.start() again, it will only fire the event once, because currentCount has not been reset to zero, and is still >= repeatCount.
If you call timer.reset() before calling timer.start(), it will set this value to zero and things should behave as expected.

Answer 2

var timer:Timer = new Timer(2000, 1);
myButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onClick);
timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER_COMPLETE, onTimerComplete);
function onClick(event: Event):void {
timer.reset();
timer.start();
dice.play();
}
function onTimerComplete(event:TimerEvent):void {
var roll:int = int(Math.floor(Math.rand()*6))+1;
dice.gotoAndStop(roll);
}
The timer is set to run only once, for 2000 milliseconds (which are 2 seconds). When Click occurs, the timer is reset (so that if it's not the first time it was clicked, it will run as if it was the first time) and started, and the animation starts a well. After 2 seconds, TIMER_COMPLETE will be fired by the timer, and we catch it and determine a final number for the die, then gotoAndStop to that frame.
I didn't try to compile the code, but the gist of it should work for you.
P.S, dice is the plural of 'die' :) you're skipping a great opportunity for the type of variable names we all want to use but can't!

Answer 3

You could try something a little more like this:
var t:Timer = new Timer(10, 50);
t.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, timerHandler);
t.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER_COMPLETE, timerCompleteHandler);
t.start();
function timerHandler(e:TimerEvent):void {
gotoRandomFrame();
}
private function timerCompleteHandler(e:TimerEvent):void {
var finalNum:int = gotoRandomFrame();
// Using finalNum
}
private function gotoRandomFrame():int {
var num:int = Math.floor(Math.random() * 6) +1;
dice.gotoAndStop(num);
return num;
}
So use gotoAndStop to set your frame rather than using play