Dealing with multiple external AS3 files

[agentx]

I am trying to use multiple actionscript files so that there is less clutter. However, I can only make an instance of movieclip from the main class. If I try to do it from other classes, it gives me an error. How can I fix this?

thanks

[henke37]

Not enough context to answer the question.

[agentx]

Sorry I am trying get use to object oriented programming.
So I have my .fla file where I have my movieclips. I have two movieclips called "device_MC" and "photon_MC", which I am exporting. Right now I have two classes: main.as, and time.as.

Main.as
public function main (){
    createDevice();
}
public function createDevice():void{
        var device:MovieClip = new device_MC();
        addChild(device);
        device.x = stage.stageWidth/2;
        device.y = stage.stageHeight/2;
        var photon_time:time = new time(); //this gives me error
        addChild(photon_time);                 //this gives me error
}

time.as
public function time () {
        createPhoton();
        }
public function createPhoton():void{
        var photon:MovieClip = new photon_MC();
        addChild(photon);
        photon.x = stage.stageWidth/2;
        photon.y = stage.stageHeight/2;

}

It shouldn't be giving me an error because I did import the time as well as the stage in the beginning of each file.

[[afz]snickelfitz]

The stage is not valid in the time.as constructor, in your posted code.

[agentx]

Ok. Thanks that works! I was wandering why is the stage invalid even if I imported it?

[henke37]

The stage is not invalid. The stage property simply reflects the fact that the object is or is not on the display tree of the stage.

[agentx]

Sorry I am still a little bit confused. For the moment, the stage only works with main.as, but not with other files. How do I include stage in time.as without it giving me any errors? I really want to use some of the properties dealing with Stage in time.as.
thank you so much again!

[[afz]snickelfitz]

You cannot add the stage to your Class instance.
You add your class instance to the stage. Once that has occurred, the code in your class file can make references to the stage.

The standard way to do this is to listen for Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE in the external class or swf constructor.
In the Event handler, you can make the references to the stage without errors.

package 
{
    import flash.display.*;
    import flash.events.*;

    public class ChildClass extends Sprite
    {

        public function ChildClass()
        {
            if (stage)
            {
                init(null);
            }
            else
            {
                addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);
            }
        }

        private function init(e:Event):void
        {
            trace(stage);
        }
    }
}