Question

AS3 Load Image and Text to Dynamic Movie Clip

Asked by: slightlyoff

Hello,

I'm trying to create an xml driven event scroller for my site.  So far I've been able to get the XML loaded into flash.  

The movie demensions are 288X94.

My goal is to load the first event in the middle of the stage, while loading the last event off the stage (on the top) and the next event off the stage (on the bottom).  Eventually, the event will stay on the stage for 5 seconds, then scroll up.

That's the idea.  However, I'm starting with just trying to dynamically create movie clips and load them with the data from my xml.

I've attached my actionscript below.  The real issue with this code, is that i'm creating a new movie clip with an instance name of "mc" + t.  I need this loaded on the stage, and the the image from the xml file loaded into it.

This isn't working... I'm gettign this error:

TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert "mc1" to flash.display.MovieClip.
      at event_scroll_fla::MainTimeline/createObj()
      at event_scroll_fla::MainTimeline/ParseEvents()
      at event_scroll_fla::MainTimeline/LoadXML()
      at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEventFunction()
      at flash.events::EventDispatcher/dispatchEvent()
      at flash.net::URLLoader/onComplete()

Any ideas?  I appreciate the help, this is my first attempt with AS3...

//XML Loader
var xmlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
var xmlData:XML = new XML();
 
//For Loading the Image
var imageLoader:Loader;
 
//Need to know how many events...
var totalEvents:int = 0;
 
//XML Lists for Data
var eventList:XMLList;
var imgList:XMLList;
var linkList:XMLList;
 
//----------- End variables
 
 
xmlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, LoadXML);
xmlLoader.load(new URLRequest("events.xml"));
 
function LoadXML(e:Event):void {
	xmlData = new XML(e.target.data);
	ParseEvents(xmlData);
}
 
function ParseEvents(eventInput:XML):void{
	//get info
	eventList = eventInput.theEvent.title;
	linkList = eventInput.theEvent.link;
	imgList = eventInput.theEvent.image;
	trace("imgList: " + imgList[0]);
	// how many events
	totalEvents = eventList.length();
	trace("the #Events = " + totalEvents);
	
	trace("totalEvents: " + totalEvents);
	createObj(totalEvents);
}
 
function createObj(n:int):void {
	var myMC:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
	var t:int;
	var space:int = 10;
	var initY = 5;
	var theImageText:String;
	
	for (t=1;t<=n;t++){
 
			myMC.x = 5;
			myMC.y = initY;
			myMC.name = "mc" + t;
		addChild(myMC);
		initY = initY + space;
		trace("img: " + t);
		theImageText = imgList[t];
		loadImage(theImageText, "mc" + t)
	}
	
	function loadImage(url:String, mcX:MovieClip):void {
	// Set properties on my Loader object
		imageLoader = new Loader();
		imageLoader.load(new URLRequest(url));
		imageLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, imageLoading);
		imageLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, imageLoaded(mcX));
	}
	
	function imageLoaded(e:Event, imageURL:MovieClip):void {
	// Load Image
		imageURL.addChild(imageLoader);
	}
	 
	function imageLoading(e:ProgressEvent):void {
		// For current download progress
		// Preloader
	}
}
                                  
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Asked On
2009-11-05 at 09:29:34ID24875252
Topics

ActionScript

,

Adobe Flash

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
4

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Answers

 

by: furmigaPosted on 2009-11-05 at 14:43:37ID: 25754927

Hi there!

I'm not familiar with AS3 but do we still have the eval Function ?

If so, how about change the loadImage(theImageText, "mc" + t) to loadImage(theImageText, eval("mc" + t)) ?

Ralph

 

by: furmigaPosted on 2009-11-05 at 14:49:02ID: 25754980

If this fail, try change the function loadImage to get an String as parameter and then
when you gonna load the image, you use the eval, or simple text

function loadImage(url:String, mcX:String):void {
        // Set properties on my Loader object
                imageLoader = new Loader();
                imageLoader.load(new URLRequest(url));
                imageLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, imageLoading);
                imageLoader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, imageLoaded(eval(mcX))); // or just mcX
        }

 

by: NiklasMollerPosted on 2009-11-09 at 15:12:21ID: 25781084

Hello!

Your problem seems to be that you are passing a string as the 2nd argument to a function that expects a MovieClip datatype:

in the createObj() function:
-----------------------------
for (t=1;t<=n;t++){
 
                  myMC.x = 5;
                  myMC.y = initY;
                  myMC.name = "mc" + t;
            addChild(myMC);
            initY = initY + space;
            trace("img: " + t);
            theImageText = imgList[t];
            loadImage(theImageText, "mc" + t) //RIGHT HERE, you are passing "mc"+t which is a string
      }
//--------------------
What I would do is define a new MovieClip inside the for loop instead, and just pass that MovieClip on to the loadImage function. See code.

In actionscript you cannot put two strings together only if you want to get a reference to an object or variable. You do that with square brackets, like so:    

this["my"+"Object" ]

And the above is NOT the same as getting a reference to a MovieClip with the property .name set to "myObject". You get references to movieclips with certain names by calling getChildByName()

Also, I would as a rule refrain from defining functions within functions. Although you can, you loose out on some good error messages. LIke in this case, if your function was defined outside createObj(), you would get a "better" error message pointing you to the right place.

//NOTE! I have not tested this code! 
function createObj(n:int):void {
	var myMC:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
	var t:int;
	var space:int = 10;
	var initY = 5;
	var theImageText:String;
	
	for (t=1;t<=n;t++){
 
		myMC = new MovieClip(); //create one movieclip on each loop round
                myMC.x = 5;
		myMC.y = initY;
		myMC.name = "mc" + t;
		addChild(myMC);
		initY = initY + space;
		trace("img: " + t);
		theImageText = imgList[t];
		loadImage(theImageText, myMC); //pass the actual movieclip reference on
	}
	
                                              
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by: slightlyoffPosted on 2009-11-10 at 12:15:59ID: 25789307

Thank you for your help.

I actually ended up doing something slightly different on to the loader.  Instead of using a seperate function to load the image, I just did it all within the createobj function.  I've pasted it below.

The only thing with this, is that the formating for the text isn't working...  but that's another post.

Thanks again for your help!

function createObj(n:int):void {
	
	var t:int;
	var space:int = 50;
	var initY = 5;
	var theImageText:String;
	var theLabel:TextField;
	
	
	for (t=0;t<n;t++){
		trace(eventList[t]);
		var myMC:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
		addChild(myMC);
		
		myMC.name = "mc" + t;
		myMC.x = 5;
		myMC.y = initY;
		
		theLabel = new TextField();
		theLabel.text = String(eventList[t]);
		theLabel.x = myMC.x + 30;
		theLabel.autoSize = TextFieldAutoSize.LEFT;
		
		var format:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
        format.font = "Verdana";
        format.color = 0xFF0000;
        format.size = 12;
        format.underline = true;
 
        theLabel.defaultTextFormat = format;	
		myMC.addChild(theLabel);
		
		var i = new Loader();
		i.load(new URLRequest(imgList[t]));
		
		myMC.addChild(i);
		
		
		initY = initY + space;
	}
 
}

                                              
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