Monthly Archives: November 2008

DisplayObject describeType()

By Zevan | November 3, 2008
CLICK HERE TO COPY
Actionscript:
  1. for each(var prop:String in describeType(DisplayObject).factory.accessor.@name){
  2.     trace(prop);
  3. }
  4. /* outputs
  5. scaleY
  6. mouseX
  7. mouseY
  8. mask
  9. rotation
  10. alpha
  11. transform
  12. blendMode
  13. x
  14. root
  15. loaderInfo
  16. width
  17. z
  18. rotationX
  19. scale9Grid
  20. filters
  21. rotationY
  22. y
  23. stage
  24. scaleZ
  25. parent
  26. accessibilityProperties
  27. scrollRect
  28. rotationZ
  29. height
  30. name
  31. opaqueBackground
  32. blendShader
  33. cacheAsBitmap
  34. visible
  35. scaleX
  36. */

I First saw describeType() at senocular's AS3 Tip of the Day on Kirupa.

Posted in DisplayObject, XML | 1 Comment

Random Choice

By Zevan | November 2, 2008
CLICK HERE TO COPY
Actionscript:
  1. function randomChoice(...args:Array):*{
  2.     return args[int(Math.random()*args.length)];
  3. }
  4.  
  5. // choose randomly from a number of different values
  6. var val:* = randomChoice(10, "Hello", "0xFF0000", 1000);
  7.  
  8. // choose a random color (in this case red, green or blue)
  9. var randColor:uint = randomChoice(0xFF0000, 0x00FF00, 0x0000FF);
  10.  
  11. trace(val);
  12. trace(randColor);

The function randomChoice() takes any number of arguments and spits one of them back randomly. Just a handy function to have around... I especially like to use this function to choose from a handful of colors.

Posted in functions, random | 2 Comments

Rect vs Ellipse

By Zevan | November 1, 2008
CLICK HERE TO COPY
Actionscript:
  1. for (var i:int = 0; i<100; i++){
  2.     graphics.lineStyle(0,0);
  3.     graphics[["drawEllipse", "drawRect"][int(Math.random()*2)]](Math.random()*400, Math.random()*300, Math.random()*100,Math.random()*100)
  4. }
  5.  
  6. /*
  7. WARNING: This code was written for fun. Use at your own risk.
  8. */

And a more readable version:

CLICK HERE TO COPY
Actionscript:
  1. var methodChoices:Array = ["drawEllipse", "drawRect"];
  2. var method:String;
  3. var xp:Number, yp:Number, w:Number, h:Number;
  4. for (var i:int = 0; i<100; i++){
  5.     method = methodChoices[int(Math.random()*methodChoices.length)];
  6.     graphics.lineStyle(0,0);
  7.     xp = Math.random()*400;
  8.     yp = Math.random()*300;
  9.     w = Math.random()*100;
  10.     h = Math.random()*100;
  11.     graphics[method](xp, yp, w, h)
  12. }
  13.  
  14. /*
  15. WARNING: This code was written for fun. Use at your own risk.
  16. */

Here I use yesterdays associative array function call technique to do something different. Not really all that useful, but interesting....

Posted in Graphics, associative arrays, functions, random | Leave a comment