one template, many looks?

[subquark]

I searched and also went through the tutorials. But once again, I don't even know the approach so am not sure what to look for. I know the result I want (become a world renowned mx guru and make more money that Bill Gates). Sorry, I dozed off for a sec . . .

The tutorials that came closest were Tutorial 28 attachMovie and Tutorial 32 LoadVariables and LoadVars Objects

What I would like to do is by using actionscript generate a simple interface. This part I think I can do.

boxOne_mc._x = 100;
boxOne_mc._y = 100;

boxTwo_mc._x = 200;
boxTwo_mc._y = 100;

boxOne_mc._x = 300;
boxOne_mc._y = 100;

btnOne_mc.x = 5;
btnOne_mc.y = 100;

et cetera

where I have some five movie clips that I will always want to show, but have them arranged in two different manners. To keep this example simple. Let's say I want one swf to have 5 horizontal boxes and the other to have 5 vertical boxes (I will also apply the same to a series of buttons, but that's later).

So I would like to create what??? Is it an array? A function? See I'm totally lost as to where to start.

I have these movie clips (boxes and buttons) and also a news box a la Jesse's tutorial

holder.loadVariables("file.txt");

just point me to a thread, I'm sure that is has been done a billion times (a billion, hmm, Bill Gates . . . did you know that a million dollars is to Bill Gates like 42 cents is to the average American?).

Thanks!

[CyanBlue]

Hm... I don't understand your question regarding how the buttons should be laid out after reading the data from the text file... Can you draw something and upload it so that my exhausted brain can understand how it is going to be looking like???

Oh... I am not sure if I have told you this or not, but here it is...
Do not ever ever ever never use loadVariables() function in FMX unless you are exporting your movie in F5 format... That's for your own sake...

[subquark]

thanks CyanBlue! I'm trying to make two interfaces from one. So that for layout A the movieclips are arranged as such and for mc B they are arranged another way.

Same movie clips just arranged differently. So their positions are dictated by some set of parameters. Set of parameters A (position) yields layout A . . .

Here's the look (two largest sets of blocks are content mc, the little ones are button mcs).

http://www.subquark.com/footer/layout.gif

and then actually I would like each "layout" to be able to load content X or content Y. But I thinks I'll do this with loadURL for jpg loading (I think).

Forget the txt file thing, that's to load text in another mc.

Thanks for the loadVars tip!

[subquark]

maybe something like this:

_root.createEmptyMovieClip("myMC1", 1);
_root.createEmptyMovieClip("myMC2", 2);
_root.createEmptyMovieClip("myMC3", 3);
myMC1._x = 30;
myMC1._y = 30;
myMC2._x = 30;
myMC2._y = 50;
myMC3._x = 30;
myMC3._Y = 150;
loadMovie("movie1.swf", myMC1);
loadMovie("movie2.swf", myMC2);
loadMovie("movie3.swf", myMC3);

but this uses external swfs, I'd like to use mc's from the library.

totally clueless . . .

I need a function with parameters (I think), I'll keep searching here and in the mountain of books. Sometimes I feel like such a simpleton (boo hoo).

[retrotron]

I'll throw in my two cents here, though wait for Cyan's as it will assuredly be better.

Sometimes when I build these kinds of things, I write a function called "buildLayout()" or something similar (this is always part of an object for me, but it would work otherwise too). I pass one parameter: an associative array called "layoutInfo" that contains many variables. E.g.:

// define parameters array
var layoutInfo = new Array();
layoutInfo.buttons = "horizontal";
layoutInfo.button1_startx = "25";
layoutInfo.contentStyle = "style1";
etc...

// call function
buildLayout(layoutInfo);

The function begins by initializing the values of the layoutInfo array by checking if the value is defined, and if not, it sets the default value.

function buildArray(x) {
  if (x.buttons == undefined) { x.buttons = "vertical"; }
  if (x.button1_startx == undefined) { x.button1_startx = 0; }
  etc...
  if (x.bgColor == undefined) { x.bgColor = "0x000000"; }
  etc..

} // end buildArray() 

This lets the developer fill out only those values of the layoutInfo array that she wants to alter. For example, notice that I did not define layoutInfo.bgColor in the layoutInfo array, so the function will simply assign a default value.

Then the function builds the interface according to the values:

function buildArray(x) {
   // above initialization code here ....

  // define the main movie clip which will contain all the others
  // and assign its background color to x.bgColor ...

  // build button interface
  if (x.buttons == "vertical") {
    // code here to build the buttons vertically, 
    // starting at x.button1_startx ...
  } else if (x.buttons == "horizontal") {
    // code here to build the buttons horizontally,
    // starting at x.button1_startx ...
  } // end if statement

  // build content interface ....
  if (x.contentStyle == "style1") {
    // code here to arrange the content _mcs via one style
  } else if (x.contentStyle == "style2") {
    // code here to arrange the content _mcs via another style
  } // etc.

  // and so on until everything is complete ...

} // end buildLayout() 

This lets you have everything customizable, everything from fonts to fontsize to alpha transparencies, to images, etc. If you want any element to be customizable, simply include an element for its definition in the layoutInfo array. Again, since it's an associative array and everything is set to a default value, the user can send as many elements as she likes. For example,

// define parameters
var layoutInfo = new Array();
layoutInfo.bgColor = "0x0000cc";
layoutInfo.txtColor = "0xFFFFFF";

// call function
buildLayout(layoutInfo);

this would do everything default except for bgColor and txtColor, but one could also send a layoutInfo array with all 200 elements defined (assuming your interface had that many customizable elements).

Anyhoo, I've found this method to be very nice in the past, and very reusable.

Hope something here gives you some ideas.

[subquark]

OMG! That's it!!! CyanWho? (oh oh that rhymes too)

Yeah CyanBlue is the friggin' CodeBeast, however, you have hit the nail on the head. Exactly what I was after (I think). I knew there was a way.

Thank you so much! So do you also create your buttons in actionscript? I have a whole bunch (19) of movie clip buttons but wanted to also see about making those on the fly. Simple looking text buttons but it would be nice if a function could be made to create the buttons and label them. See, I am so far behind someone like you that it all seems so hard. But I know it's doable (sp?).

BillyT has a tutorial where he creates buttons but they are not labelled . . .

http://www.actionscript.org/tutorial...nt/index.shtml

and his code goes like this:

//create our buttons
for(i=1;i<5;i++){
        _root.createEmptyMovieClip("button"+i, 100+i);
        _root["button"+i].lineStyle(2, 0x000000, 100);
        _root["button"+i].beginFill(0xFF0000, 100);
        _root["button"+i].moveTo(-25, -10);
        _root["button"+i].lineTo(25, -10);
        _root["button"+i].lineTo(25, 10);
        _root["button"+i].lineTo(-25, 10);
        _root["button"+i].endFill(-25, -10);
        _root["button"+i]._x=i*60;
        _root["button"+i]._y=25;
}


_root.createEmptyMovieClip("button"+i, 100+i);
_root["button"+i]._x=i*60;
_root["button"+i]._y=25;

[retrotron]

What do you mean by "labelled"? Are you referring to the instance name or the text that is displayed on the face of the button?

You can definitely use AS to create buttons dynamically. I built a function (maybe an object, I can't remember) a while back that creates buttons on the fly, and I think it even uses the above-mentioned array thingy to customize colors, font, size, text-placement inside the button, and even whether the background is solid or alpha transparent. It also lets you define the instance name and the text on the face of the button, if that's what you're after. I'm not at my home computer, so I can't dig up the code, but I'll post it when I get the chance if you like (or you can build your own!).

Of course, this is re-inventing the wheel a bit since components solve this problem with a simple "attachMovie()" method, but I always say it's good to reinvent the wheel at least a few hundred times. Who do I say this to, you ask? Mostly myself, and on occasion the lamp in the corner.

[subquark]

doh! components! thanks! I did not even explore that! they can be reskinned and all that (but now I have to read up on eventHandlers . . .)

as you can tell, I'm a newbie (well, I've been banging my head for a year or more) but how do I use something like this to place my button mcs?

for(i=1;i<5;i++){
_root.createEmptyMovieClip("button"+i, 100+i);
_root["button"+i]._x=i*60;
_root["button"+i]._y=25;
}

it's the real basic questions that I can't grasp . . .



Thanks, you have shed some light on me and given me hope. I really, really appreciate this!

[retrotron]

Your code looks exactly right to me.

However, these movie clips are currently empty, there's no drawing or loaded conent in them, so you won't see anything on the stage when you run this code.

Try drawing a line so you can see something when you test it:

for(i=1;i<5;i++){
        _root.createEmptyMovieClip("button"+i, 100+i);
        _root["button"+i].moveTo(0,0); // move pen to 0,0
        _root["button"+i].lineTo(50,0); // extend a line 50px to the right
        _root["button"+i]._x=i*60; // move line to these coordinates
        _root["button"+i]._y=25;
}

[subquark]

thanks retrotron, you have helped make this day much more pleasant. I'm trying to do some layouts for a possible fulltime employer and really want to deliver some nice interfaces.

they just asked to layout one interface from the top three candidates, and rather than just doing that like I normally would, I wanted to generate as much as I could via AS. and maybe give them two interfaces with one swf by just changing a few lines of code. like your firts example, that makes a lot of sense and is very efficient and well done (i presume you work in the biz and do quite well).

here is a freebie site I'm doing: http://www.rockagainstsuicide.com/flash and it's still in the early stages but is standard in that it's a bunch of buttons that were placed on the stage.

for this project, i wanted to dynamically produce as much as i can (but i just don't have the knowledge yet).

the example with the empty movie clips; well I was wondering how I could take my buttons (instance names: home_btn, specials_btn, etc) and populate the stage with them at set positions. so that the loop would go through all the button names (so change them to one_btn, two_btn, . . .) and place them 25 pixels down from the last and so on.

BUT, that's what I don't know how to write: a loop that will count and place the buttons at set distances (x for horizontal buttons and y for vertical.