Insert

The Insert widget is used to insert ActionScript code between two widgets. It allows the designer’s code to easily receive values from Insert’s inputSource, process them, and then output the resulting new values via the output of Insert. Other widgets can then set their inputSource to receive input from the Insert widget. For example, you might create a set up such as this:

AnalogInput -> Insert -> ClipControl

In this example, the AnalogInput might be given an instance name of “input1″, the Insert widget given a name of “insert1″. Set the Insert widget inputSource to “input1″, and the ClipControl widget inputSource to “insert1″. Your code can listen to and process the values from the Insert widget’s inputSource (the AnalogInput widget) with the following code on frame 1 of the timeline:

insert1.insertInput = processInput;
function processInput(inputValue, id) {
     // inputValue is the value from Insert's inputSource
     // id is the instance name of the Insert widget sending the value
     var outputValue = inputValue * 2;
     insert1.insertOutput(outputValue);
}

Where insert1 is the instance name of the Insert widget, and “processInput” is the name of a function that will receive the values. In this simple example, the value received from the AnalogInput widget into the inputSource of the Insert widget called “insert1″ is multiplied by 2. The result is then sent to the output of the Insert widget with the statement:

insert1.insertOutput(outputValue);

The ClipControl widget receives this new processed value from the Insert widget. Alternatively, in a new feature, the Insert widget can have its output set by simply setting its variable outputValue. For example:

insert1.outputValue = 125;

This method is especially useful if you are using the tween function, which requires a property name to be used as on of the parameters. For example:

var myTween:Tween = new Tween(insert1, "outputValue", Elastic.easeOut, 0, 300, 3, true);

This Tween will set the output values of the Tween widget named “insert1″ from 0 to 300 over a period of 3 seconds, using the Elastic.easeOut curve. For more info in the Tween object in ActionScript:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AS3LCR/Flash_10.0/fl/transitions/Tween.html

In a more complex example of using the Insert widget, the values from two different AnalogInputs are compared, and only if both have a value greater than 500 is the output of insert1 set to 200, otherwise the output is set to 100. The “id” parameter in the function is used to distinguish between the two inputs, using a single function to process both. In this example, the AnalogInputs are name “input1″ and “input2″ respectively. Similarly, two Insert widgets are named “insert1″ and “insert2″. The ClipControl widget only needs to listen to one of the Insert widgets, and sets its inputSource to “insert1″.

insert1.insertInput = processInput;
insert2.insertInput = processInput;

var lastInsert1 = 0;
var lastInsert2 = 0;

function processInput(inputValue, id) {
    if (id == "insert1") lastInsert1 = inputValue;
    else if (id == "insert2") lastInsert2 = inputValue;

    if (lastInsert1 > 500 && lastInsert2 > 500) insert1.insertOutput(200);
    else insert1.insertOutput(100);
}

Example FLA to download: insertExample.fla.zip

Last modified June 10th, 2010