Dispatching Events

How to dispatch a custom event in Actionscript 3

This is going to be a very simple example of how to dispatch an event. In actionscript 3, you dispatch an event by extending the EventDispatcher class. I’m not going to get into a big complicated explanation right now, but I will show you a couple of simple examples.

This is a preview of How to dispatch a custom event in Actionscript 3. Read the full post (172 words, estimated 41 secs reading time)

Load AS2 SWF into your AS3 Project

There is a Flash game that I have been working on that I’ve had to load into an as3 interface and I noticed that my previous class will not work to do this.

There were a few modifications that I had to make… Here is the Actionscript 3 class:

This is a preview of Load AS2 SWF into your AS3 Project. Read the full post (112 words, estimated 27 secs reading time)

Load SWF via Actionscript 3 with this class

Here is a class that you can use to load swf’s into an object that you can display or do whatever you’d like with:

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// SWFLoader Class by Rick Nuthman
// 2.10.10
//
// Usage:
/*
var mySWF:Object;
mySWF = SWFLoader.create("urlToSWF.swf", 0,0);
mySWF.dispatcher.addEventListener("ready", displaySwf);
function displaySwf(event:Event){
addChild(mySWF.swf);
}
*/

package com.frigidfish{

import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.Loader;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.events.EventDispatcher

public class SWFLoader{

public function SWFLoader() {
}

public static function create(url, x=0,y=0):Object {

var loaded:Event    = new Event("ready");
var dispatcher:EventDispatcher = new EventDispatcher();
var swf:Sprite    = new Sprite ;
var mLoader:Loader    = new Loader ;
var obj:Object    = new Object;

obj.swf = swf;
obj.dispatcher = dispatcher;

swf.x = x;
swf.y = y;

var mRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
mLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,swfLoaded);

mLoader.load(mRequest);

function swfLoaded(event:Event) {
var target = event.currentTarget.content;
swf.addChild(target);
dispatcher.dispatchEvent(loaded);
}

return obj;
}
}
}

You don’t need to make an instance of the class, just use the static function ‘create’ like so:

This is a preview of Load SWF via Actionscript 3 with this class. Read the full post (102 words, estimated 24 secs reading time)

flash and php – Send/Receive Variables from Actionscript 3 & PHP

Below is a class that I made that can be used to send a group of variables to a php script on a server and receive the results. I use this all the time when working between flash and php in my projects!

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// FlashPHP Class by Rick Nuthman
// 8.28.09
// Constructor receives 2 arguments:
// url:String - The url to the PHP file
// flashVars:Object - An object that contains variables to be sent to the url
//
// The class dispatches 1 event called "ready" once the php transaction is complete.
// listen for this event. Once it's received you can access returned variabled from receievedVars.

package com.frigidfish{

import flash.net.URLVariables;
import flash.net.URLLoader;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.net.URLLoaderDataFormat;
import flash.net.URLRequestMethod;
import flash.events.EventDispatcher;
import flash.events.Event;

public class FlashPHP extends EventDispatcher {

// Public Properties
public var receivedVars:URLVariables;

// Private Properties
private var url:String;
private var flashVars:Object;
private var request:URLRequest;

private var completeEvent:Event = new Event("ready");
private var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
private var loader:URLLoader    = new URLLoader();

public function FlashPHP(url:String, flashVars:Object) {

this.flashVars    = flashVars;
this.url    = url+"?r="+ new Date().getTime();

parseVariables();
}

// Private Methods
private function parseVariables() {

for (var item in flashVars) {

variables[item] = flashVars[item];
}

sendVariables();
}

private function sendVariables() {

request = new URLRequest(url);
request.method    = URLRequestMethod.POST;
request.data    = variables;

loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES;
loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, variablesAreLoaded);
loader.load(request);
}

function variablesAreLoaded(event:Event) {

receivedVars    = new URLVariables(loader.data);
dispatchEvent(completeEvent);
}
}
}

Here is an example of how to implement it:

This is a preview of flash and php – Send/Receive Variables from Actionscript 3 & PHP. Read the full post (207 words, estimated 50 secs reading time)

actionscript 3 preloader freezes at 100% (SOLVED!)

Have you ever embedded an swf into an html docuement and all seemed fine until you started getting calls from customers saying that the preloader is stuck at 100%?

Well I have, and it took me quite some time to figure this out.

This is a preview of actionscript 3 preloader freezes at 100% (SOLVED!). Read the full post (158 words, estimated 38 secs reading time)