Solving technology problems, one at a time
Another item I need to keep looking up: how to get the attributes of an XML item. Here, per the ever-helpful Senocular, is the definitive note on the subject. E4X (XML used in ActionScript 3)
Continue readingIt’s very easy to wipe out your default Actionscript classpath from the Publish Settings “Flash” tab, so I’ve had to look it up several times. Here it is for your convenience: $(AppConfig)/ActionScript 3.0/Classes It’s a
Continue readingIf you get an error like this in an actionscript 3 Flash file: TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert flash.display::SimpleButton@61422481 to [symbolname]. at flash.display::Sprite/constructChildren() at flash.display::Sprite() at flash.display::MovieClip() at classname()[/path_to/as/classname.as:34] Check the symbol
Continue readingThis game is a framework to create a simulation of a crash cart in a hospital. A crash cart is a red metal tool cart with 6 drawers, filled with the items used by the Cardiac Arrest team to save people’s lives when they have a cardiac arrest. Speed is of the essence in an arrest, so the people on the team need to know exactly where each item is in the drawers. The goal of this game is to help train team members to find the items they need.
An item to be found is randomly chosen, and the player clicks on a drawer and looks through the items to find the one they are looking for. When it is found, they drag the item to the target (which will probably be animated and a whole lot cooler looking in the final game. If they get it right, they get positive feedback of some sort and another item is chosen. If not, the item pops back to its last position before the drag and they get another chance to find the correct item.
Continue readingAfter years of institutionalized incompatibility in their browser software, office software, and video software, Microsoft has come out with with Silverlight, their Rich Internet application platform and supposed Flash Killer. Flash is universally accepted because
Continue readingIf your flash file works correctly when you test the movie in Flash, but not once it is published, check your Publish Settings. While modifying a flashcard example application I downloaded from Flashkit.com, I noticed
Continue readingI had a particularly sticky flash problem where a MovieClip worked perfectly when run on its own, but when loaded into a container clip using a loader, would give:
Error #1056: Cannot create property someProperty on loaded clip myLoadedClip
At first I thought it was some kind of timing problem or failure to declare the items in the clip, but it turned out, simply adding the word dynamic to the class definition fixed the problem. Dynamic classes can have properties added at runtime. The MovieClip class is already dynamic, but apparently, the dynamic property is removed in some other part of my code.
In Actionscript 3, you may find yourself wondering why when you use “useHandCursor” on a MovieClip, the cursor remains an arrow on mouse_down.
In AS3, useHandCursor is a property of the SimpleButton class. if an object has “buttonMode” set to true, by default “useHandCursor” will also be true. If is is not set to buttonMode, setting “useHandCursor” to true will do nothing.
On objects that are set to buttonMode, setting “useHandCursor to false will prevent the cursor from changing to a hand on MOUSE_DOWN.
Continue readingI am working on a Flash project where a MovieClip that is contained within another clip needs to get a property from the main timeline of the container clip. trace(this.parent.someProperty) But this generated an error:
Continue readingI’ve come across several PC’s that will play Flash videos, but with no audio. There appear to be a couple of possible fixes to try, thanks to Selder and others in the Weyland.be blog. Go
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