UI Tutorial (draft) - Revision history

Obadiah: /* Getting Information From The Engine */

2011-07-14T01:35:51Z

‎Getting Information From The Engine

FollowTheGourd: /* Bugs and getting sources to compile */

2011-05-08T16:28:11Z

‎Bugs and getting sources to compile

Sunjammer: /* Getting Information From The Engine */ Converted URL to WikiLinks

2011-05-03T22:44:26Z

‎Getting Information From The Engine: Converted URL to WikiLinks

Blu3jack: /* Introduction */

2011-05-03T03:45:07Z

‎Introduction

Blu3jack: /* Getting Information From The Engine */

2011-04-18T04:01:37Z

‎Getting Information From The Engine

Blu3jack: /* Getting Information From The Engine */

2011-04-18T03:59:30Z

‎Getting Information From The Engine

Blu3jack: /* Making Modifications */

2011-04-18T03:58:47Z

‎Making Modifications

Blu3jack: /* Introduction */

2011-04-18T03:55:55Z

‎Introduction

FollowTheGourd: /* Other information sources */

2010-11-13T02:17:47Z

‎Other information sources

FollowTheGourd: /* Other information sources */

2010-11-13T02:16:59Z

‎Other information sources

@@ Line 167: / Line 167: @@
 === Getting Information From The Engine ===
-It is possible to get information from the engine using the ExternalCommands class. More on this class can be found at [[ActionScript:ExternalCommands|External Commands]]. Of aprticular interest is [[ActionScript:ExternalCommands.GetValue|GetValue]]
+It is possible to get information from the engine using the ExternalCommands class. More on this class can be found at [[ActionScript:ExternalCommands|External Commands]]. Of particular interest is [[ActionScript:ExternalCommands.GetValue|GetValue]]
 === Issues displaying custom MovieClip subclasses ===

@@ Line 141: / Line 141: @@
 You can first get the open source FlashDevelop IDE which comes with MTASC and the standard Flash library. If you have the SWFs and the ActionScript *.as files, then what you can do is create an empty ActionScript 2 project, in the project settings turn off "use main entry point" and under the project "injection" tab, point it to the SWF you want to update with your new ActionScript.
-You'll also want to update the project classpaths to point to your game's ActionScript library. Just in my experience, there seem to be some properties on some of the standard classes that would normally prevent the script from compiling - but in that case what you can do is modify the so-called intrinsic files to let the compiler know about them. E.g., you can add needed function and var declarations to the intrinsic class interfaces under C:\Program Files\FlashDevelop\Tools\mtasc. The nice thing about ActionScript and intrinsics is that you don't even need to know the values of these "missing" properties or functions if they're basically defined in the runtime environment. E.g., Mouse.LEFT isn't standard Flash, but if you edit Mouse.as and add '''static var LEFT;''' to the intrinsic class definition, then you're good to go, as the value gets looked up during execution like a dictionary value (in fact, Mouse["left"] should yield the same result).
+You'll also want to update the project classpaths to point to your game's ActionScript library. Just in my experience, there seem to be some properties on some of the standard classes that would normally prevent the script from compiling - but in that case what you can do is modify the so-called intrinsic files to let the compiler know about them. E.g., you can add needed function and var declarations to the intrinsic class interfaces under C:\Program Files\FlashDevelop\Tools\mtasc. The nice thing about ActionScript and intrinsics is that (unless used as a case value in a switch-statement) you don't even need to know the values of these "missing" properties or functions if they're basically defined in the runtime environment. E.g., Mouse.LEFT isn't standard Flash, but if you edit Mouse.as and add '''static var LEFT;''' to the intrinsic class definition, then you're good to go, as the value gets looked up during execution like a dictionary value (in fact, Mouse["LEFT"] should yield the same result).
 Also if you press Ctrl+J you'll get the type explorer where you can right click on a folder (that you've added to your classpath) and select "convert to intrinsic". So this way you only need to compile the actual *.as file you're making changes to and keep the others around as intrinsics. Using the IDE's SWF injection I mentioned above will make it so you don't have to worry about recompiling everything.
@@ Line 165: / Line 165: @@
 EDIT: Here's a bug with Trillix I noticed, but they said it'll be fixed soon: if you have "var foo = this" and if a register is used for 'foo', then Trillix doesn't properly initialize the register... but instead just uses 'this' everywhere else. This causes problems if you needed that variable to choose between using 'this' and possibly another object. E.g., "var obj = this; if (something) { obj = someOtherObject; } someFunc.doIt(obj);" only works as long as "obj" is stored as a variable and not a register, which is up to the original compiler. In reply, they mentioned that you could work around that issue by turning off the "ActionScript 'Recover arguments' names" setting, which makes it a bit more difficult to keep track of function arguments, so it's less than ideal.
 === Getting Information From The Engine ===
 It is possible to get information from the engine using the ExternalCommands class. More on this class can be found at [[ActionScript:ExternalCommands|External Commands]]. Of aprticular interest is [[ActionScript:ExternalCommands.GetValue|GetValue]]

@@ Line 166: / Line 166: @@
 EDIT: Here's a bug with Trillix I noticed, but they said it'll be fixed soon: if you have "var foo = this" and if a register is used for 'foo', then Trillix doesn't properly initialize the register... but instead just uses 'this' everywhere else. This causes problems if you needed that variable to choose between using 'this' and possibly another object. E.g., "var obj = this; if (something) { obj = someOtherObject; } someFunc.doIt(obj);" only works as long as "obj" is stored as a variable and not a register, which is up to the original compiler. In reply, they mentioned that you could work around that issue by turning off the "ActionScript 'Recover arguments' names" setting, which makes it a bit more difficult to keep track of function arguments, so it's less than ideal.
 === Getting Information From The Engine ===
-It is possible to get information from the engine using the ExternalCommands class. More on this class can be found at [http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/ActionScript:ExternalCommands External Commands]. Of aprticular interest is [http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/ActionScript:ExternalCommands.GetValue GetValue]
+It is possible to get information from the engine using the ExternalCommands class. More on this class can be found at [[ActionScript:ExternalCommands|External Commands]]. Of aprticular interest is [[ActionScript:ExternalCommands.GetValue|GetValue]]
 === Issues displaying custom MovieClip subclasses ===

@@ Line 7: / Line 7: @@
 This means they use the older ActionScript 2.0, which you can find some learning resources on here [http://download.macromedia.com/pub/documentation/en/flash/fl8/fl8_learning_as2.pdf fl8_learning_as2.pdf] and here [http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/main/flash_as2_learning.pdf flash_as2_learning.pdf], among other places scattered on the web. You can download the API reference, but a decent online location is [http://flash-reference.icod.de/ here] (faster than Adobe's site I find).
-For it to work in game, the U.I. element must saved using the name of an existing U.I. file, as the engine will only run U.I. elements it is expecting. You can, however, leave the file extension as .swf and it will still run.
+For it to work in game, the U.I. element must be saved using the name of an existing U.I. file, as the engine will only run U.I. elements it is expecting. You can, however, leave the file extension as .swf and it will still run.
 === Other information sources ===

@@ Line 166: / Line 166: @@
 EDIT: Here's a bug with Trillix I noticed, but they said it'll be fixed soon: if you have "var foo = this" and if a register is used for 'foo', then Trillix doesn't properly initialize the register... but instead just uses 'this' everywhere else. This causes problems if you needed that variable to choose between using 'this' and possibly another object. E.g., "var obj = this; if (something) { obj = someOtherObject; } someFunc.doIt(obj);" only works as long as "obj" is stored as a variable and not a register, which is up to the original compiler. In reply, they mentioned that you could work around that issue by turning off the "ActionScript 'Recover arguments' names" setting, which makes it a bit more difficult to keep track of function arguments, so it's less than ideal.
 === Getting Information From The Engine ===
-It is possible to get information from the engine using the ExternalCommands class. More on this class can be found <a href = http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/ActionScript:ExternalCommands. here </a>
+It is possible to get information from the engine using the ExternalCommands class. More on this class can be found at [http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/ActionScript:ExternalCommands External Commands]. Of aprticular interest is [http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/ActionScript:ExternalCommands.GetValue GetValue]
 === Issues displaying custom MovieClip subclasses ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:58, 18 April 2011
Line 165:		Line 165:

	EDIT: Here's a bug with Trillix I noticed, but they said it'll be fixed soon: if you have "var foo = this" and if a register is used for 'foo', then Trillix doesn't properly initialize the register... but instead just uses 'this' everywhere else. This causes problems if you needed that variable to choose between using 'this' and possibly another object. E.g., "var obj = this; if (something) { obj = someOtherObject; } someFunc.doIt(obj);" only works as long as "obj" is stored as a variable and not a register, which is up to the original compiler. In reply, they mentioned that you could work around that issue by turning off the "ActionScript 'Recover arguments' names" setting, which makes it a bit more difficult to keep track of function arguments, so it's less than ideal.		EDIT: Here's a bug with Trillix I noticed, but they said it'll be fixed soon: if you have "var foo = this" and if a register is used for 'foo', then Trillix doesn't properly initialize the register... but instead just uses 'this' everywhere else. This causes problems if you needed that variable to choose between using 'this' and possibly another object. E.g., "var obj = this; if (something) { obj = someOtherObject; } someFunc.doIt(obj);" only works as long as "obj" is stored as a variable and not a register, which is up to the original compiler. In reply, they mentioned that you could work around that issue by turning off the "ActionScript 'Recover arguments' names" setting, which makes it a bit more difficult to keep track of function arguments, so it's less than ideal.
		+	=== Getting Information From The Engine ===
		+	It is possible to get information from the engine using the ExternalCommands class. More on this class can be found at http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/ActionScript:ExternalCommands

	=== Issues displaying custom MovieClip subclasses ===		=== Issues displaying custom MovieClip subclasses ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 03:55, 18 April 2011
Line 6:		Line 6:

	This means they use the older ActionScript 2.0, which you can find some learning resources on here [http://download.macromedia.com/pub/documentation/en/flash/fl8/fl8_learning_as2.pdf fl8_learning_as2.pdf] and here [http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/main/flash_as2_learning.pdf flash_as2_learning.pdf], among other places scattered on the web. You can download the API reference, but a decent online location is [http://flash-reference.icod.de/ here] (faster than Adobe's site I find).		This means they use the older ActionScript 2.0, which you can find some learning resources on here [http://download.macromedia.com/pub/documentation/en/flash/fl8/fl8_learning_as2.pdf fl8_learning_as2.pdf] and here [http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/main/flash_as2_learning.pdf flash_as2_learning.pdf], among other places scattered on the web. You can download the API reference, but a decent online location is [http://flash-reference.icod.de/ here] (faster than Adobe's site I find).
		+
		+	For it to work in game, the U.I. element must saved using the name of an existing U.I. file, as the engine will only run U.I. elements it is expecting. You can, however, leave the file extension as .swf and it will still run.

	=== Other information sources ===		=== Other information sources ===

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 There's also a long-standing draft article on the profile page here [[User:FollowTheGourd]] about the conversation UI. It could also be ammended to explain things like 800x600 is treated as if it were 1024x768, and that the cutscene bars actually have a negative height if the screen width is much longer than the screen height, as seen with Eyefinity display setups.
-Another thing to realize is the game's aspect ratio correction and how one resolution in window mode will get stretched to fill your screen space in fullscreen mode. So then there's a difference between the Stage (Flash term) width and height and the video settings which you can access using the ExternalCommands ActionScript class. The point is that the Stage dimensions are more reliable than the video settings you can retrieve through the ExternalCommands class, although it doesn't stop the quickbar UI file from reading the attribute ''"ClientOptions.VideoOptions.ResolutionWidth"'' from it, although there might be a perfectly good reason for that - I haven't really looked too far into why they made that choice other than the engine notifying the GUI when it changes.
+Another thing to realize is the game's aspect ratio correction and how one resolution in window mode will get stretched to fill your screen space in fullscreen mode. So then there's a difference between the Stage (Flash term) width and height and the video settings which you can access using the ExternalCommands ActionScript class. The point is that the Stage dimensions are more reliable than the video settings you can retrieve through the ExternalCommands class, although it doesn't stop the quickbar UI file from reading the attribute ''"ClientOptions.VideoOptions.ResolutionWidth"'' from it, but there might be a perfectly good reason for that like the engine notifying the GUI when it changes.
 == Toolchain ==