Comments on: Debugging ActionScript 2.0 Code: Lifting the Blindfold

by: David Stiller

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 18:49:24 +0000

Jeckyl would know, for sure. Always something to keep learning in Flash!

by: NSurveyor

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 01:50:31 +0000

Did a little digging into the newsgroups… and haha, I found this:

Jeckyl:

“alpha values are always a multiple of 100/256 .. because inside the flash
player, alpha values range 0..256. So there is no exact 10% value.”

So there are indeed 257 values, because Jeckyl is almost never wrong…

See this Adobe forum thread (via Google Groups).

by: David Stiller

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 00:33:19 +0000

The more I think about it, the less confident I feel about my original reply, NSurveyor. This reminds me of the classic “missing dollar”/hotel puzzle, which always seems to stump me when I haven’t re-read it in a while. If you figure it out, let me know!

by: NSurveyor

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 20:35:25 +0000

How so? The way I see it, the minimum value for my above code is 0. The maximum is 256. That gives 257 values? I don’t see how the minimum value is 1 (according to my code)???

by: David Stiller

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:56:04 +0000

NSurveyor,

Flash only supports 256 levels of transparency, but your experiment is very interesting (as usual!). In Flash, the range goes from 0 to 255, which is 256 values; in your math equation, the range goes from 1 to 256, which is, again, 256 values.

by: NSurveyor

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:43:19 +0000

You know, I’ve never actually used the Debugger panel. And now I can see how useful it really is… guess it’s time to start using it!

Also, aren’t there 257 levels of transparency?

MovieClip.prototype.addProperty(’_alpha256′, function () {
return this._alpha/100*256;
}, function (x) {
this._alpha = x/256*100;
});
_alpha256 = 0;
trace(_alpha256);
_alpha256 = 128;
trace(_alpha256);
_alpha256 = 256;
trace(_alpha256);

0-256 is 257 values.

See this Adobe forum thread (via Google Groups).

by: David Stiller

Wed, 31 May 2006 02:54:37 +0000

Thanks, ImagicDigital! I owe thanks to Jen deHaan for many of those screenshots. She was great about eliciting more and more detail from me.

by: ImagicDigital

Wed, 31 May 2006 01:45:01 +0000

Congrats on a great article! There’s a ton of info in it, but very well organized, and — of course — made interesting with good writing. I like the fact that it was so well illustrated with screenshots (allows the reader to follow along even without opening up your sample files). Which I will download anyway, to get at the traceXML function you mention above!