Today we will look at randoms. Random numbers, randoms with limits and random arrays. So let’s begin…
If you look at random then that gives the basic syntax…
1 | randomNum = random(15) |
1 | randomNum = random()*(max-min)+min; |
please make sure to have max and min predefined variable numbers
1 | randomString = ArrayName[random(ArrayName.length)]; |
Pretty simple huh? Tomorrow i will show you why and why not to use them
Let’s hope it’s easier to code than say, well here goes:
Easy variable setting based on an if statement.
Easy variable setting based on an if statement.
Easy variable setting based on an if statement.
Easy variable setting based on an if statement.
Easy variable setting based on an if statement.
Not too hard i suppose – and the code:
1 | a = (b>5)? 10 : 7 |
So, what am i trying to achieve… First, let’s see it in regular code…
1 2 3 4 5 | if(b>5){ a = 10 }else{ a = 7 } |
Get it?
1 | a = (b>5)? 10 : 7 |
Ok, so a is equal to whether b is bigger than 5 if so then it is equal to 10. If not then 7,
Easy when you know how.
So, pump this into a new document on the first frame…
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | clicks = 0 max = 5 _root.onEnterFrame = function(){ a = (clicks>=max)? "Stop Clicking" : "Keep Clicking "+(max-clicks)+" more times" } _root.onMouseDown = function(){ clicks++ trace(a) } |
you should receive something like this to your output…
So on the frame(s) that you wish to edit the right click menu for (_root) add the code:
So to begin with we need to declare a new context menu…
1 | customMenu:ContextMenu = new ContextMenu(); |
So now we have a new context menu assigned to the variable customMenu…
To remove the inbuilt control items we use the syntax:
1 | customMenu.hideBuiltInItems(); |
The above codes are basically the standard use of this code and the following is not required. Although you may wish to add custom controls. To do so, first declare your function to handle what you want to happen when the menu item is pressed:
1 2 3 | function openStormation(){ getURL("http://stormation.info",_top) } |
Now all we need to do is assign this to a context item using the syntax
1 | openStormationItem:ContextMenuItem = new ContextMenuItem("© 2010 Stormation.info", openStormation); |
But there is no link yet, this is where we “push” (add) it to our customMenu
1 | customMenu.customItems.push(openStormationItem); |
And that is a custom context menu. You could obviously add more. If you wished to add more you can use;
1 | openStormationItem.separatorBefore = true; |
to separate it all.
Let’ just set it up…
1 2 3 4 5 | onEnterFrame = function(){ time = new Date(); seconds = time.getSeconds() minutes = time.getMinutes() hours = time.getHours() |
You should probably know what this does, if not – read two days agos post…
Now let’s just setup the actual values…
1 2 | hours = hours + (minutes/60) + (seconds/3600) minutes = minutes + (seconds/60) |
Line 1 : So the hours is equal to the total number of hours, the minutes (we divide by 60 because a minute is a 60th of an hour and the same with seconds)
Line 2 : Same here, but here we only use seconds
What’s left? Getting it all to equal 360 at the max…
- In English that means that 12 hours or 60 minutes or 60 seconds all equal 360… The total rotation of a circle.
1 2 3 | seconds = seconds*6; minutes = minutes*6; hours = hours*30; |
Line 1 : When the total is 60 then to get to 360 we times by 6
Line 2 : Same here
Line 3 : But the total is now 12 so we times by 30
Then we just link it to the moveiclips
1 2 3 4 | second._rotation = seconds; minute._rotation = minutes; hour._rotation = hours; } |
Simple
So, what are we trying to do? Access the current time… So let’s setup some variables.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | dates = new Date(); seconds = dates.getSeconds(); minutes = dates.getMinutes(); hours = dates.getHours(); day = dates.getDay(); date = dates.getDate(); month = dates.getMonth(); year = dates.getFullYear(); |
Line 1 : We setup the dates under the variable “dates”
Line 2 – 7 : Setup the appropriate variables to get the current date.
Now, let’s setup some arrays so we can parse the data
1 2 | days = new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday") months = new Array("January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July","August", "September", "October", "Novemeber", "December") |
Looking good, notice “Sunday” is the first because Flash thinks it is the first day of the week.
Now, let’s setup the seconds/minutes because we want to add a “0″ if it is under ten seconds/minutes.
1 2 3 4 5 6 | if (minutes<10) { minutes = "0"+minutes; } if (seconds<10) { seconds = "0"+seconds; } |
Now all that’s left is to compile it all together
1 2 3 4 | day = days[day] month = months[month] time = ((hours) + ":" + (minutes) + ":" + (seconds)); datefinal = ((day) + " " + (date) + " " + (month) + " " + (year)); |
And that’s it, Tomorrow let’s create an analogue clock.
Not very much to learn except to use it use the syntax…
random(number)
so for example random(10) will return anything upto 10. If we use Math.Round(random(10)) then the number will be rounded to the nearest whole number.
random() on it’s own will produce a decimal anywhere between 0 and 1. So random()*200 would produce any number upto 200….
Yesterday i published part one with the basic syntax… Now i bring you part two.
In this tutorial i will show you how to fade i sound, you could duplicate and edit it to allow fade out too if you needed…
So, here is my function
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 | function fadeInSound(fileID,nameID,speed){ nameID = new Sound(_root) nameID.attachSound(fileID) nameID.start() nameID.setVolume(0) checkFadeIn = setInterval(fadeInSoundCheck,speed,nameID) } function fadeInSoundCheck(nameID){ if(nameID.getVolume()<100){ nameID.setVolume(nameID.getVolume()+1) }else{ clearInterval(checkFadeIn) } } |
Line 1 : Declares the function with three parameters
Line 2 – 5 : Uses the basic syntax to setup the sound object
Line 6 : Passing the parameters through an interval, so we can control the speed of the sound fade
Line 8 : Uses the parameters passed through the function to use again
Line 9 – 12 : If it isn’t at max volume then increase the sound, otherwise remove the interval
For example
1 | fadeInSound("SomeSoundID","SomeSoundsNewID",100) |
In php the print function is a function that outputs data. In nearly all cases anything outputted by print ends up in the browser. In php a function’s parameters nearly always are send in parentheses, in this case you can send characters or strings, but a string must always be encased by single or double quotation marks.
Ok, so open up your favourite php or text editor an enter the following:
1 2 3 | <?php print "Hello World!"; ?> |
and it should output something like:
Hello World!
Notice on line 2 we used a semi colon at the end of the line. This tells php it’s the end of the line and that it can carry on – php gets angry without them 
The Array object lets you access and manipulate arrays. An array is an object which is identified by numbers. The values are stored as a list and can be manipulated to display items. All arrays are zero-based, which means they all start from zero so in the following example ArrayName[0] is the first and ArrayName[1] is the second etc…
To initialise an array you use the following:
ArrayName = new Array()
ArrayName[0] = “Jan”
ArrayName[1] = “Feb”
ArrayName[2] = “Mar”
ArrayName[3] = “Apr”
or ArrayName = new Array(“Jan”,”Feb”,”Mar”,”Apr”)
Does a great game have background music? Yes
Does a great game have sound effects? Yes
Does a great game NEED sound? Yes
So, here goes…
I recently decided that sound would make a good tutorial. In this short tutorial i will only show you the basic syntax, tomorrow i will use some custom functions which allow me to modify the sond; eg fade in, pan etc…
So… The code
1 2 3 4 5 | SoundName = new Sound (_root) SoundName.attachSound("SoundID") SoundName.start(StartPos,Loops) SoundName.setVolume(50) SoundName.setPan(-50) |
Firstly, make sure that the sound is in Flash’s library.
Then, right click it and export it for actionscript. Note down the identifier, so we can access it later…
Line 1 : Creates a new sound object attached to the root.
Line 2 : Attaches the actual sound file to the object (SoundID = identifier)
Line 3 : Starts the sound, Where to start from and how many times to loop
Line 4 : Set’s the volume of the sound object (100 = max)
Line 5 : Set’s the pan of the sound object (0 = center, -100 = left, 100 = right)
Written by