Loop Javascript (or Actionscript!) array based on index

Looping arrays is particularly useful for things like photo galleries and other iterative processes where you want the "next photo" button on a gallery to continue from the beginning of the album after the user passes the last photo.

In my humble opinion, I believe this functionality should be built into the core of Ecmascript ( For example, something like myArray[-2] should really return the second last element in the array) but alas we have to write it ourselves, so here goes...

AS3 Load external flash SWFs into a queue to play in a consecutive sequence

This script imports a text file from the local directory and imports all swfs listed in the text file to play on the stage sequentially, i.e. one after another. Its very useful for banner ads and other animations when you need to be able to slot new ads into the sequence.

AS3: Simple, Powerful String Find & Replace all instances function for Flash Actionscript. Similar to PHP's str_replace replacement.

Exactly what it says on the tin!

AS2 version here

AS3: Wave of values class function - produces incremental and decremental values

Sometimes it's necessary to have a value increment until it gets to a certain point and then have it decrement again in a wave shape. A simple Math.sin() calculation will work in some cases but its not easy to control the increment using that method. This handy & simple class makes it quick and easy to do just this. There's lots of room for improvements & additions so feel free to post updates :)

AS3 handy weighted random & rounding functions with decimal/floating point precision

Like a lot of the "improvements" Adobe made to Actionscript with AS3, the Math.random() function is now a pain in the ass. It only generates a floating point number between 0 and 1 so 99% of the time, you need a few lines of code to get your random on.
With time saving in mind, I've written this weighted random function which makes beautiful randomness a lot handier to implement. For best results throw this in a class package and include it in every project.
Here it comes...

AS3 function to rotate a 2D or 3D MovieClip or Sprite around its center or change to any registration point

OK here we go - I looked everywhere for this one but only found bits of code from various forums and blogs that were part of classes and packages and as such, full of dependent variables. Anyway, after a bit of advice from the very helpful community at StackOverflow and a bit of tinkering, she's up and running!

The function below will rotate a DisplayObject around any point on a 2D or 3D plane. This is particularly useful for rotating around an object's center point so this is the default behaviour. Enjoy!

Actionscript 3: Better Random Function & Better Rounding Function

I was amazed at how lame the rounding and random functions are in AS3 so I've written 2 simple functions to add much needed functionality. Enjoy...

Actionscript/Javascript Colour mode conversion functions - convert HSB/HSL/HSV to RGB to web HEX color or to flash matrix

I wrote/found/tweaked these conversion functions today to convert between the most common colour modes. it was very difficult to find a solid source for converting colours online so I thought I'd post them here for the world. They should work in actionscript 2 & 3 and could easily be tweaked to work in php, python or any other language. Here goes...

AS2: Simple, Powerful String Find & Replace all instances function for Flash Actionscript. Similar to PHP's str_replace replacement.

Exactly what it says on the tin!

AS3 version here

Resize a Movie Clip containing a mask by getting dimensions of visible bounds/area and compensating width/height

This was a head wrecker and took me most of the day today. Actionscript does not see Movie Clips as we do and considers invisible content to be part of the MC. As such, when you try to resize an MC that contains masked content which extends beyond what we consider to be the edges of the MovieClip, flash makes a balls of it.

To counteract this I've written and rewritten a double function which resizes your clip based on the visible area rather than what flash considers the bounds. Here it comes...

Add padding or a solid background to a Movie Clip with Flash Actionscript AS2

I wrote this little function today to add HTML style padding to a Flash MovieClip. It took a lot of testing to get working but it's actually very straight forward and quite a handy one to have in your function arsenal.

It basically draws a rectangle behind all content in the movie clip and repositions the clip on the Stage. It can also be used to add a solid background behind a given MovieClip. Implementation is a synch:

AS2: PHP style trim for Actionscript 2 - with 'any' character support

Theres a few of these functions around but none (that I could find) will allow you to trim non whitespace characters so I pulled this one together which lets you trim any character you want.

//USAGE:
trace(trim(";A test;;", ";"));    //outputs: "A test" 

function trim(str:String, char:String):String{
    if(char==undefined){char=" ";}
    code=char.charCodeAt(0)
    for(var i = 0; str.charCodeAt(i) ==code; i++);
    for(var j = str.length-1; str.charCodeAt(j) ==code; j--);
    return str.substring(i, j+1);
}

Free AS2 Script for Rotating Website Banner or Slideshow in Flash

This is a simple AS2 function to turn a normal flash MovieClip into a rotating banner or fading photo slideshow for a website. Timings and speeds are customisable, it works with any size images and will even work with animated content. All you have to do is put one photo on each frame of a Movie clip and the script does the rest.
Full instructions and demo below...

Resize function for image or MovieClip with advanced options - Actionscript2 AS2

I found myself often needing to resize images to fit different spaces using actionscript so I wrote this handy function a while back. It allows you to quickly resize the image proportionally to fit your needs and doesn't require much thought. See usage examples below and you'll see what I mean.

mySQL to Flash import class - run queries from AS2 simply & automatically

mySQL2AS package with DataGrid...

This incredibly simple tool takes 5 minutes to set up and allows you to run mySQL queries and return results to flash using Actionscript 2 just as you can in PHP or any other language. Just 3 lines at the top of your flash document make mySQL queries a single function call away.  You can loop through the results, trace them all to the output panel and even display them in a datagrid (a flash table) on the stage.

Save JPG /PNG image from AS2 project using AS3 & PHP

There's a tonne of Actionscript 2 image capture scripts out there but after an extensive search last month, the best ones I could find all ran into horrible memory problems and server timeouts when trying to capture large images. So I figured out a better way...

About the banner...

The banner image for this blog was my my first attempt at generating something pretty using Flash Actionscript. I later did a few more experiments and generated the image in the background of this blog too.
View banner image full size: