PE4 Flash ActionScript 3

I used to hate writing event listeners and handlers in Flash and I would always put my code on movie clips.  Well now that you can’t put code on movie clips anymore with ActionScript3, I may have to start using event listeners and handlers.  I opened the Lynda.com video on event listeners and handlers and found that writing them in ActionScript 3 is a lot easier than it was in ActionScript 2. 

I proceeded with the tutorial by adding an event listener to the snow boarder instance name.  I was excited that listeners could be created with the instance name and not having to create a new variable and then going though extra steps to include the instance name.  The listener was composed of an event, which in this case was a mouse event – “CLICK”.  After the event, I typed the name of the function. 

The next video discussed about writing the function or handler for the event listener.  I have written functions before, but have never included events, so this was a fun learning experience.  The function listed the mouse event from above as its variable and I followed with the tutorial by creating a trace statement to see if the function worked properly.  Everything here was pretty simple until I found out that the instance name in the function could be replaced by an event as well.  This would make the function reusable for any object!  Usually, I would have had to create a variable to use for the instance name, but by using event.target, I was able to make this function dynamic.  So instead of controlling the x and y coordinates or any other property of only 1 object, in this case boarder_mc, I used event.target, which in turn will work for any object inside that function. 

Another fun thing I learned tonight is making the mouse cursor available in ActionScript 3.  In ActionScript 2 the code was – objectName.useHandCursor = true/false (true makes it visible and false makes it invisible).

In ActionScript 3, the mouse cursor seems to be off by default when using events, but the new code is now – objectName.buttonMode = true/false

Below is the result of the mouse event.  Every time you click on the snow boarder object, it will move up 15 pixels from its current location and will increment the rotation by 45 from its current rotation.