It’s been some time since my last post. My apologies - I have been sucked into the Twitter vortex which I find fascinating to be honest. I mean, whodda thunk that 140 characters could reveal so many brand insights! But that’s a different post altogether.
Today I’m sharing some tips that I learned from Todd Dominey’s Twitter feed (@tdominey). For those of you who don’t know Todd Dominey, you’ll certainly know his work: SlideShowPro - the completely ubiquitous (and awesome) Flash slideshow gallery.
Both tips are AS3 specific, and oh so helpful.
Tip 1: A simpler trace function
I can’t tell you how many times I have had to type long, convoluted trace statements to see if whatever I’m working on is doing what I think it should be doing. Usually those trace statements look something like this:
trace ("array item " + i + ": " + my_arr[i]);
which would turn out something like this:
array item 0: blue
array item 1: red
array item 2: green
You’ll notice a lot of plus signs and quotes and stuff. Well, instead, try replacing the + signs with commas:
trace ("array item ", i, ": ", my_arr[i]);
Though it’s nothing truly magnificent, I find typing commas vs. + signs is much faster and easier to understand.
Tip 2: A simple for loop for arrays
This one is also quite simple in its function, but saves a lot of typing. Instead of looping through an array with a for statement, like so:
for (var i:int = 0; i < my_arr.length; i++) {
myFunction(which:int);
}
you can use this:
my_arr.forEach(myFunction);
so long as myFunction accepts the right params:
function myFunction(element:*, index:int, arr:Array) {
trace (element, ": " , index);
}
Pretty nifty eh? Yeah, I thought so too. Thanks @tdominey!
