Mr.doob's blog | DuplicateMovieClip with AS3 (not Senocular's way)

DuplicateMovieClip with AS3 (not Senocular's way)

December 1st 2008

I've been trying to use Senocular's duplicateDisplayObject() for a while and I've experienced a lot of crashes of specific versions of Flash player and also unsuccessful results when used within an AIR application. After playing around quite a bit with all this, the best way I've found is to avoid duplicating the instance but duplicate the element on the domain/library instead.

I'm pasting here a snippet of how it works:

/*
 * node.@src example: file:///home/[username]/Desktop/[project]/files/assets/home/ball.swf
 * Cache.get() its basically a Dictionary where I store all the externally loaded files using the url as keys
 */

var mc : DisplayObject = Cache.get( node.@src );

var pathArray : Array = String( node.@src ).split( "/" );
var filename : String = String( pathArray[ pathArray.length - 1 ] ).split( "." )[0];  

if ( mc.loaderInfo.applicationDomain.hasDefinition( filename ))
	mc = new ( mc.loaderInfo.applicationDomain.getDefinition( filename ))();

mc is now a clean duplication (as far as I know) of the original class. In my setup I expect the element that I want to be duplicated be named with the exact name as its container's filename (.swf), which is perfect for FlexSDK compiled stuff, but need some teaching for Flash IDE.

This is, of course, compatible with any kind of Object (not only MovieClips/Sprites/DisplayObjects)...

8 comments written so far...

This doesn't really make that much sense to me. What if the movieClip is not in a separate file? Like if it's a Library item, or it was created from code?

January 5th 2009

Sixer

Then you would use Senocular's way. But if your MovieClip is in a separate file, or you have it accessible on your local library, you can use this way.

January 5th 2009

mr.doob

I have written an indepth article on how to do it in this method.

http://darylteo.com/blog/2007/11/16/abstracting-assets-from-actionscript-in-as30-asset-libraries/

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Daryl

January 12th 2009

Daryl Teo

I've been experiencing similar issues while using Senocular's method in AIR as well, Mr. Doob. For exampl,e with a movieclip, a new instance from it's base constructor results in "0" total frames.

I will try your method, but I'm using BulkLoader so I may have to hack some stuff up.

February 15th 2009

Jonathan Dumaine

hi!!

please can u upload a tutorial on these topics..
1.drag and duplicate what was dragged.
2.capturing sound microphone and video thru camera

it would be really helpful.
thanx a lot!

May 24th 2009

rahul

I'm afraid I don't do tutorials on request :P

May 25th 2009

mrdoob

someone?

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DuplicateMovieClip with AS3 (not Senocular's way)

December 1st 2008

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