AS3: Using currentTarget to listen for your buttons

01/02/2010 in RIA View Comments

A lot of times when I am working on a project that has a lot of buttons, I like to simplify my event listeners into two methods, watching the currentTarget to see where to go. This is extremely helpful when you have to have a mouse down effect that needs to keep looping, say on a zoom. So, when the user holds the mouse down, I add an ENTER_FRAME event that keeps the event in a loop. By using currentTarget and a switch statement, you can keep your listeners set up nice and clean, also helps the next guy figure out what you are trying to accomplish…

btnOne.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,checkMouseDown);
btnOne.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP,checkMouseUp);
 
//or even
 
btnTwo.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,checkMouseDown);

function checkMouseDown(e:MouseEvent):void {
 
	switch (e.currentTarget) {
 
		case btnOne :
		stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,myMethod);
		break;
 
		case btnTwo :
		myMethod(null);
		break;
 
	}
}
 
function checkMouseUp(e:MouseEvent):void {
 
	switch (e.currentTarget) {
 
		case btnOne :
		stage.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, myMethod);
		break;
 
	}
}
 
function myMethod(e:Event):void{
	//Do Something
}