The Flash Connection Make mine Actionscript 3.0!

Chi,

My tutorial here only dealt with the idea of one project, so sorry for the narrow focus. You can share class libraries with multiple projects just by setting a classpath to them in your (fla's) publish settings, on a project by project basis. I showed in the tutorial how to set a classpath.

What I failed to bring out is that there is a browse button that will let you browse your system to set the classpath. Your class libraries can actually be anywhere on your hard drive, but I have myself found it handy if they reside in some folders that are just above all of the projects in the directory tree.

Like so:

classes

        com

        greensock

        ... // etc

projects

        project1

        project 2

        ... etc

In the above, the project1 and project2 folders would be similar to the "working folder" in my tutorial example, and would each contain bin, lib, and src files. Then you could just open the fla file in each project, go to the publish settings, and set a classpath for the classes folder.

The ../src classpath I recommended in the tutorial would still apply. This is a relative reference. You would add to that another classpath to your class library, only this one would be an absolute reference.

Hope that helps, if not, I'd be glad to explain it in more detail. But yeah, you can share your class library(s) amongst projects, no problem!

--Jody

I am a student and Jody quickly and clearly answered my question with AS3. I appreciate his knowledgeable and fast feedback!

I think i figured it out. if I put

stage.focus=this;

into frame 1 of the Intro instance timeline, that seems to do the trick without errors. Let me know if this is not the right way to do this.

Thanks, Chi

Chi, I kind of prefer adding keyboard listeners to the stage. That way, they work no matter which object on the stage might have focus. Also, your fix causes you to put code in the timeline.

Your original line that added the event listener to the stage would have worked if you had placed it in the added handler. Remember in the tutorial I showed how to write ADDED_TO_STAGE event handlers? This is done mostly to detect when the stage property gets its value. Your class's constructor runs when outside code says "new."

Example (suppose this line is in my Main class):

var intro:Intro = new Intro();

This line makes a new instance of the Intro class (right side of the equals sign), which causes the class's constructor to run. The new instance is assigned to the variable intro (left side of the equals sign).

On the other hand, the ADDED_TO_STAGE event is triggered when outside code says "addChild."

Example (again, in the Main class):

addChild(intro);

This adds the intro instance to the main timeline object. When it does, the intro instance dispatches the ADDED_TO_STAGE event, and if a listener has been defined inside the Intro class, it will be called. To set this up, you add an event listener for ADDED_TO_STAGE in Intro's constructor, and write an addedHandler function for it. Then, inside the addedHandler, you now have a valid reference to the stage, so you can go ahead and add your keyboard listener to the stage.

One thing I kind of regret in the tutorial is telling people to center the registration point of their screens, which is not really a good idea. I feel it's best to create screens with their registration point in the upper left hand corner. However, I left it in because it did demonstrate that you have a valid stage reference, because the code used the stage property for centering purposes.

Now you see, though, that there might be other reasons for needing a valid stage reference, like adding keyboard listeners.

[[EDIT: Suggestion--When you add your keyboard event listeners to the stage in your addedHandler function, be sure to remove them again in your removedHandler function. The reason is that event listeners added to the stage remain in effect even after your screen is removed from the display. Remember, your screen has not been removed from memory, just from the display.]]

Naturally, I am glad that you are getting a lot out of my other articles. And don't worry, I am always glad to help if I can.

Hi Jody,

I know you don't have much written on video playback, but thought it was worth asking you anyway. i am trying to add a cuepoint in and then stop the video at that cuepoint. Below is the stripped down version of my AS3.0 called phpTest, which is just a class built as you described in AS3 classes tutuorial. The player is sitting in a video layer in the "phpTest" instance of the "phpTest" linked movieclip.

First problem. I have tried putting the cuepoint listener in a bunch of different places, but nothing seems to work. The video plays fine and fetches clips fine. But I can't get the listener to kick me into the videopause function. All my clips are much longer than 1.1 seconds. Currently the listener is sitting in the addeventhandler section.

Second problem i am having is the issue that first pass through, the playclip() seems to fire before my PHP script has finished getting the filepath for the video (happens in getpitch() and showresult() functions). But once through, it then just uses the filepath retrieved from the last time and works fine. Not sure how to stop it from going to "playclip()" before it has completed the getpitch() and showresult() functions.

As always, appreciate any insight you can provide.

package {
import flash.display.*;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.net.*;
import flash.text.*;
import fl.video.FLVPlayback;
import fl.video.MetadataEvent;

public class phpTest extends MovieClip {
var filepath:String = "";

public function phpTest() {
addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, addedHandler);
addEventListener(Event.REMOVED_FROM_STAGE, removedHandler);

getPitchBtn.myText.text = "Get Next Pitch";
getPitchBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, getPitchBtnClicked);
}

private function addedHandler(event:Event):void {
player.addEventListener(MetadataEvent.CUE_POINT,videopause);
}

private function removedHandler(event:Event):void {
}

private function getPitchBtnClicked(event:Event):void{
getPitch(); //function that goes to database and retrieves information about the video and which video to play
player.addASCuePoint(1.1,"ASpt1"); //set cuepoint 1.1 seconds into the video
playclip(); //function that plays the specfified clip
}

private function playclip():void {
player.play("http://pseudo01.hddn.com/vod/seetheseams.chificiency/"+filepath);
}

private function videopause(m:MetadataEvent):void
{
trace("made it into videopause function");
player.stop();
}

//function to go get the pitch and associated data
private function getPitch ():void {

//variables that we send to the php file
var phpVars:URLVariables = new URLVariables();

//we create a URLRequest variable. This gets the php file path.
var phpFileRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest("http://develop.myownurl.com/php/getpitch.php");

//this allows us to use the post function in php
phpFileRequest.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;

//attach the php variables to the URLRequest
phpFileRequest.data = phpVars;

//create a new loader to load and send our urlrequest
var phpLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
phpLoader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES;
phpLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, showResult);

//now lets create the variables to send to the php file
//this also acts to ensure that the PHP is called everytime instead of caching
phpVars.systemCall = "placeholder";

//this will start the communication between flash and php
phpLoader.load(phpFileRequest);
}

private function showResult (e:Event):void {
//display the results from the PHP query and store the userID in order to find the account on update
filepath = e.target.data.result_path;
trace("filepath = " + filepath);
}
}
}

Works perfectly now! Thanks so much. I have been using live docs a lot...they are very useful. In fact i read the whole damn section on cuepoints, but didn't even think to read the FLVPlayback section.

I am not even sure I would have figured out that I was wiping it out with my play command. I am still getting used to OOP...i think very serially.

Thanks, enjoy the rest of whats left of the weekend. Have lunch on me tomorrow.
Chi