A Simple Pause Function in Actionscript 3

June 1st, 2011 No Comments

Just a quick function that you can use in your library of tricks to simulate pausing in Actionscript 3.

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public static function pause(timeInSeconds:int, functionToCall:Function):void {
var timer:Timer = new Timer(timeInSeconds * 1000);
timer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, callFunction, false, 0, true);
timer.start();
function callFunction(event:TimerEvent):void {
timer.stop();
timer.removeEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, callFunction);
timer = null;
functionToCall();
}
}

The function takes 2 arguments:

timeInSeconds – how many seconds to wait before calling the function
functionToCall – the function to call after the given time has passed

example usage (assuming that you drop this function into a class called Utilities:

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private function gameWinTriggered():void{

// player just dropped the last piece on the game board,
// but we want to wait a second before showing the win screen

Utilities.pause(1,showWinScreen);
}

private function showWinScreen):void{
trace('You Win!');
}

That’s all there is to it. Really handy for instances like these when you want to wait before a transition as to not jar the player with instant changes.