Scratch

I haven't been able to replicate the setup, mainly because of hardware/software issues, plus I've been playing around with some other things. But I don't see any issues at first glance with your code.

I would suggest tracing/monitoring the stream of stuff that your Flash program has to consider during runtime. Like I mentioned, when I was working on my Catenary program I noticed that there was an ever-increasing delay in my Scratch program seeing changes in analog values from the board, so when I looked at it more closely I realized that the C program within the arduino board was swamping my Java/Processing program with analog values that it was then parsing and sending off to Scratch. To fix it, I had to change the sampling rate and come up with a way to ignore any sensor-update or broadcast that was not related to data acquisition.

On the other hand, it seems like you're pretty close. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where using a non-open IDE (AS/Flash) is a major downside, since there are not as many hackers/coders with Flash on their machine (unlike Python, Processing, Ruby, etc.), so it's a little harder to get help with tough problems...

Last edited by chalkmarrow (2009-02-07 14:33:11)

I did notice that running Net_Tag2.sb and playing with the player number variable resulted in spamming the socket with sensor updates of playerNumber, because the stage script has a forever loop with no delay in it where it constantly updates those variables. I'm assuming your test programs are a lot simpler that the net_tag project, but that's the kind of thing that can bog down communication.

Last edited by chalkmarrow (2009-02-07 22:39:17)

This Happens To Me In Scratch Too....Maybe You Could Convert This Into Flash:
[blocks]
<when green flag clicked>
<forever>
<set{ ???? }to( ???? )

I Don't Know.

This is amazing what you have done archmage. I give you my (made up) best idea/programmer award. This really is amazing

Can anyone help make FlashScratchNetworking? Arch and Chalk need help!

archmage: i'll probably have time this weekend to get a couple computers setup to talk via scratch/flash, so i'll take another look. i'm curious: are broadcasts delayed in the same way that sensor-updates are delayed?

Last edited by chalkmarrow (2009-02-10 09:02:58)

I've never seen the "ScratchServer 2.0 alpha" message myself, I suspect that is a question for Jens or Johnm.

No there isn't, but there are alternatives. You should very rarely need to preform a wait anyways.

Buddy_ca111 wrote:

Also what about using lists? Is that possible?

Lists are not really called lists in programming. They are called arrays.

Flash has different types of arrays including multi dimensional arrays that let you put arrays in your arrays 

Actionscript can do everything scratch can and much more.

Here's a better version that includes functions for parsing broadcasts and sensor updates:

var dataOut:String;

//Create new socket
var s=new Socket();

//Create event listeners related to socket connection
s.connect('localhost',42001);  // Scratch listens to port 42001
s.addEventListener(Event.CONNECT,socket);
s.addEventListener(Event.CLOSE,socket);
s.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR,socket);


//Create event listener for data sent from Scratch
s.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.SOCKET_DATA, dataInHandler);    


// Send any old string to Scratch
function sendToScratch(dataOut:String) {
    var sizeBytes:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
    // length <255. This section needs to be rewritten using bitwise ops.
    sizeBytes[0]=0;
    sizeBytes[1]=0;
    sizeBytes[2]=0;
    sizeBytes[3] = dataOut.length;
    for (var i:Number=0; i<4; i++) {
        s.writeByte(sizeBytes[i]);//send each element in the array to scratch
    }
    s.writeMultiByte(dataOut, "us-ascii");
    s.flush();
}
// Send a broadcast message to Scratch
function sendScratchBroadcast(broadcast:String){
    sendToScratch('broadcast "'+broadcast+'"');
}

// Send a sensor variable update to Scratch
function sendScratchSensorUpdate(variable:String, value:String){
    sendToScratch('sensor-update '+variable+' '+value);
}

//Handle data sent from Scratch
function dataInHandler(event:ProgressEvent):void {
    var inString:String = "";
    while (s.bytesAvailable){
        inString+=s.readUTF();
    }
    //trace(inString);
    parseInput(inString);
}
// Handle event listeners for socket connection
function socket(Event):void {
    switch (Event.type) {
        case 'ioError' :
            trace("can't connect");
            break;
        case 'connect' :
            trace("connected");
            sendScratchBroadcast('HelloScratch');
            break;
        case 'close' :
            trace("can't connect");
            break;
    }
}
// Parse the data received from Scratch
function parseInput(input:String){
    // Look for broadcast from Scratch
    var pattern1:RegExp = /broadcast\s\"(\w+)\"/;
    var result:Object = pattern1.exec(input);
    if (result != null){
        trace('Scratch broadcasted:'+result[1]);
    }
    // Look for sensor-update from Scratch
    var pattern2:RegExp = /sensor-update\s\"Scratch-(\w+)\"\s(\w+)/;
    result = pattern2.exec(input);
    if (result != null){
        trace('Scratch changed variable '+result[1]+' to '+result[2]);
    }
    
}

Buddy_ca111 wrote:

archmage wrote:

Buddy_ca111 wrote:

Also what about using lists? Is that possible?

Lists are not really called lists in programming. They are called arrays.

Flash has different types of arrays including multi dimensional arrays that let you put arrays in your arrays 

Actionscript can do everything scratch can and much more.

except:

[blocks]
<wait(  )secs>
[/blocks]

there are ways to simulate this. something looking like this:
var i = getTimer()
onEnterFrame = function () {
while(getTimr()<i+A){    //A being the amount of time you want to wait
}
trace ("you have waiter A seconds")
}
or you can use intervals. Generally i dont use neither methods though. i do the above in a IF statement

So How Close Are You Done With This and SSBS? (Super Smash Brothers Scratch)

sounds great!