Great BitmapData Usage Example: messmaker.com
Here's a great example of a site that allows the user to create a custom composition by using a butt load of animated bitmap assets. I'm quite impressed, one of the most solid executions of this technique I've seen in a while. Not to mention Harry is a great little character to have as a host.
SXSW Interactive 2009
So I failed to mention that I would be heading down to Austin, Texas for SXSW Interactive. Overall, it was a great experience. My only complaint is how exhausting it was. Getting up at 9AM to go to sessions and panels, then party into the wee hours of the night can really take its toll on the old legs and liver. Regardless of how I feel now I would certainly recommend anyone in the internet industry to attend this event. Attending the sessions and panels is a great way to stay abreast to trends and whats new or popular in the business. And if you care, the parties are a great way to do some networking or just meet some new people and share ideas.
AS3: Stopping All Timeline Animations
I haven't posted in months for good reason. I've been involved in a pretty large project at Almighty that led to many late nights. All in all though, the end product turned out to be pretty awesome. I'll post something more on it later. Until then, I hope to roll out some snippets of code that I found useful during the project.
The following snippet of code is a recursive loop that halts all timeline-based animations (assuming they're on a gotoAndStop() loop. This came in handy when working with animation designers.
function haltAllAnimations( mc:MovieClip = null ):void { if( !mc ) mc = this as MovieClip; for(var i:int = 0; i < mc.numChildren ; i++) { if( (mc.getChildAt( i ) is MovieClip) == false ) continue; MovieClip( mc.getChildAt( i ) ).stop(); if( mc.numChildren > 0 ) haltAllAnimations( MovieClip( mc.getChildAt( i ) ) ); } }
Type Coercion Failed of the Same Class?
So I have this issue that I just can't seem to figure out. The Flash Player keeps throwing a Type Coercion Failed error at runtime. Usually when this error pops up I have no problem figuring it out because its usually two different object types. However, in this case, this time its of the same type. It reads:
TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert super.secret.package::BeverageAsset@2f2b96a1 to super.secret.package.BeverageAsset.
Odd, right? Ok, so now let me explain the structure a bit. At the top level is app.swf. This SWF does not include the BeverageAsset class compiled into it. This SWF manages the loading and unloading of other SWF files that represent sections. One of these sections is recipes.swf. This SWF is loaded into app.swf and is the first SWF to have BeverageAsset compiled into it. This SWF also loads various SWF display assets in order to function properly. One of these SWF's is beverage01.swf. These assets are of type BeverageAsset. This class is used as the document class for each display asset which also has two movie clips on the stage.
So, when I compile recipes.swf and it runs standalone there is no type coercion failure. I only get the error when recipes.swf is loaded and run within app.swf. Now in my experience, I thought all child SWF's loaded into an app, unless explicitly told not to, would use app.swf's application domain unless a class does not exist yet. So once recipes.swf is loaded into app.swf, since BeverageAsset is compiled into recipes.swf, it would be added to the application domain. Thus, once beverage01.swf is loaded into recipes.swf the BeverageAsset class will already be in the application domain and that one will be used.
I mean, am I totally wrong? I'm totally baffled. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
UPDATE!
Thanks Steven, for pointing me in the right direction. My assumptions about the applicationDomain for any loaded SWF was entirely wrong. I really have no idea why I assumed everything was added to the system domain as SWF's are loaded into the app. So what I have done now is define the application domain of any Loader object's context.
var context:LoaderContext = new LoaderContext( false, ApplicationDomain.currentDomain ); loader.loader( request, context );
This has eliminated any type coercion errors when loading SWF's and has allowed me to refer to them as a strongly type object. Thanks again Steven. And, man, I really need a new code formatter.
Why No Love for the Monostate Pattern in ActionScript 3?
A coworker of mine recently introduced me to the monostate pattern. At first I was like "wtf is that?". I had never heard of that pattern before. He is of the opinion that the monostate pattern is far better than the singleton pattern. I had no opinion on the subject because I only assumed singletons are the one and only way to ensure only one instance of an object is created throughout an application.
Just One of My Favorite Flash Tools: swffit
I just have to mention this really quickly. When working on tridentgum.com I was introduced to, what I thought might be, a little known JavaScript tool for Flash proejcts. We had to give the site a minimum height and width in the browser but still go 100% if the screen is larger than the minimum size. Something I've done before but just not so easily. At any rate, the lead developer at the other agency we were working with discovered swffit. It makes doing this sort of thing ridiculously easy. In most of my cases, I just need a minimum width and height, which is usually the width and height of my FLA's. Otherwise, the site can stretch to the size of the browser.
I recommend swffit to everyone!