I  often say that when referencing political, self serving, chest pounding, pissing contests that get in the way of good ideas or people doing good work.  I, as were many others, was looking forward to the updates in adobe’s new CS5, especially the ability to develop an app using flash and export it as an iPhone app. But after reading this, it’s clear that myself and anyone else with those same ambitions will have to focus our attention on other mobile platforms such as android.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/demos/

Not happy with Apple right now for such a schoolyard stunt days before CS5 is launched this Monday.

Read more about it on  Mashable

http://mashable.com/2010/04/08/apple-adobe-flash-compiler/

Passing a variable to a function in ActionScript 2 was a fairly simple task. However, it is not so easy using ActionScript 3. There are a few more things you must do first.

In ActionScript 2, passing a string variable looked like this.

my_btn.onRelease = function(){
doThis("whatever variable you want goes here");
}

function doThis(a:String){
trace(a);
}

In ActionScript 3, this is what I need to do to get the same results.  I initially wrote the example below thinking at some point, I will have several buttons that the user will interact with such as a navigation menu.

var b:Array = [b1_btn, b2_btn, b3_btn];
var a:Array = ["zero","one","two"];

for (var i:int = 0; i<b.length; i++) {

b[i].addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, clickedOne);
function clickedOne(e:MouseEvent):void {
for (var j:int = 0; j<a.length; j++) {
if (e.currentTarget.name == b[j].name) {
doThis(a[j])
}
}
}
}

function doThis(v:String):void {
trace(v);
}

Get the source fla file here.

If you have any questions just drop me a line.

UPDATE!!!

There’s more than one way to solve this problem.

Thanks to kcreation for this solution.

var btns:Array = [b1_btn, b2_btn, b3_btn];
var a:Array = ["zero","one","two"];

for (var b in btns) {
btns[b].name = b;
btns[b].addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, clickedOne);
}

function clickedOne(e:MouseEvent):void {
var b:int = int(event.currentTarget.name);
doThis(a[b]);
}

function doThis(v:String):void {
trace(v);
}

Thanks to Mykola Bilokonsky for this solution.

var buttons:Array = [b1_btn, b2_btn, b3_btn];

var dict:Dictionary = new Dictionary();
dict[b1_btn] = “String Argument”;
dict[b2_btn] = new MySampleMovieClip();
dict[b3_btn] = 7

for each (var b:MovieClip in buttons) {
b.buttonMode = true;
b.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, myHandler);
}

function myHandler(e:MouseEvent):void {
var myVariable = dict[e.currentTarget];
}

AS2

Method Description

Tween.continueTo()
Instructs the tweened animation to continue from its current value to a new value.

Tween.fforward()
Forwards the tweened animation directly to the end of the animation.

Tween.nextFrame()
Forwards the tweened animation to the next frame.

Tween.prevFrame()
Directs the tweened animation to the frame previous to the current frame.

Tween.resume()
Resumes a tweened animation from its stopped point in the animation.

Tween.rewind()
Rewinds a tweened animation to the beginning of the tweened animation.

Tween.start()
Starts the tweened animation from the beginning.

Tween.stop()
Stops the tweened animation at its current position.

Tween.toString()
Returns the class name, “[Tween]“.

Tween.yoyo()
Instructs the tweened animation to play in reverse from its last direction of tweened property increments.

Event Description

Tween.onMotionChanged
Event handler; invoked with each change in the tweened object’s property that is being animated.

Tween.onMotionFinished
Event handler; invoked when the Tween object finishes its animation.

Tween.onMotionResumed
Event handler; invoked when the Tween.resume() method is called, causing the tweened animation to resume.

Tween.onMotionStarted
Event handler; invoked when the Tween.start() method is called, causing the tweened animation to start.

Tween.onMotionStopped
Event handler; invoked when the Tween.stop() method is called, causing the tweened animation to stop.

AS3

Method Description

Tween(obj:Object, prop:String, func:Function, begin:Number, finish:Number, duration:Number, useSeconds:Boolean = false)
Creates an instance of the Tween class.

continueTo(finish:Number, duration:Number):void
Instructs the tweened animation to continue tweening from its current animation point to a new finish and duration point.

fforward():void
Forwards the tweened animation directly to the final value of the tweened animation.

nextFrame():void
Forwards the tweened animation to the next frame of an animation that was stopped.

prevFrame():void
Plays the previous frame of the tweened animation from the current stopping point of an animation that was stopped.

resume():void
Resumes the play of a tweened animation that has been stopped.

rewind(t:Number = 0):void
Moves the play of a tweened animation back to its starting value.

stop():void
Stops the play of a tweened animation at its current value.

yoyo():void
Instructs the tweened animation to play in reverse from its last direction of tweened property increments.

Event Description

TweenEvent.motionChange
Indicates that the Tween has changed and the screen has been updated.

TweenEvent.motionFinish
Indicates that the Tween has reached the end and finished.

TweenEvent.motionLoop
Indicates that the Tween has restarted playing from the beginning in looping mode.

TweenEvent.motionResume
Indicates that the Tween has resumed playing after being paused.

TweenEvent.motionStart
Indicates that the motion has started playing.

TweenEvent.motionStop
Indicates that the Tween has been stopped with an explicit call to Tween.stop().

Actionscript 2

import mx.transitions.Tween;
import mx.transitions.easing.*;

Actionscript 3

import fl.transitions.Tween;
import fl.transitions.easing.*;

For tween methods click here.

So if you too are having one of those days, feel free to download the zip file.  The zip contains the exe, swf and app file types. I’ll be converting it to an AIR app soon and adding other mood appropriate sayings to the mix.

To get around the rending issue when you drop an image on the stage I could set “Allow smoothing” in the properties menu of the image within the flash library. but since these image are dynamic, that won’t work.

Flash has the ability to smooth images that are loaded via loadMovie by using “forceSmoothing” but from what I have seen online, many people don’t see a difference when using it.

After messing around with it, I did manage to get it to work.

First I tried to apply forceSmoothing to the clip from my actions layer.

emptyClip.forceSmoothing = true

this failed!

I had to place the code on the movieClip itself, something I try not do ever but for this project, it worked but was not 100%.

onClipEvent (load) {
this.forceSmoothing = true;
}

To reach the goal I had to add “_quality = “BEST”;” to the mix.

_quality = “BEST”;

This told the flash to render the movie at a higher quality than the default rendering setting.  I did test this to see if it would work without the onClipEvent and it failed.

So in conclusion, in order to have larger images scaled down render smoothly, you will need to use “forceSmoothing” and “_quality = “BEST” together.

YAY!!! No more ugly looking images and the client doesn’t have to go spend more money on photo shoots!

The first is Enhanced Layer Colors.  Depending on the project, I can have a ton of layers.  Even though I have ability to use folders, that only takes care of my vertical space management.  But what about quickly being able to track a layer a sea of layers?  Or how about when I try to find a layer in a sea of layers when I have outlines enabled? Even then, the  Outline Color indicator itself turns into an outline.

This is where Enhanced Layer Colors come into handy.  The idea is simple. Color the entire layer with a lighter shade of the Outline Color indicator. This feature could be managed through the layer preferences menu Just as the Outline color is currently. This would aid in easier tracking of layers at a glance.

The image below shows what the layers look like in their current state and what they could like with Enhanced Layer Colors enabled.

function loadImage() {
imgHold_mc.loadMovie(imgUrl);
}
loadImage();

-or-

var url:String = "imgUrl";
function loadImage(link:String){
imgHold.loadMovie(link);
}
loadImage(url);

If you wanted to do the same thing but using ActionScript 3, you would need to use the code bellow:

var imageLoader:Loader;
function loadImage(url:String):void {
imageLoader = new Loader();
imageLoader.load(new URLRequest(url));
imageLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, imageLoaded);
}
loadImage(imgUrl);
function imageLoaded(e:Event):void {
imgHold_mc.addChild(imageLoader);
}

-or-

var imageLoader:Loader = new Loader();
imageLoader.load(new URLRequest(url));
imgHold_mc.addChild(imageLoader);

thanks Luis :)

Anyway the purpose of this post is to point out an article I came across today the Colin Mook had written about issues with AS3 and what Adobe should do to fix them.  It’s a good read and realy hits the nail on the head.

The Charges Against ActionScript 3.0