Problem with the FOR statement.....again!

Question

Hi everyone,
Well I'm still trying to do a car slideshow using external
files and can't seem to see the end. The current movie is here:
http://www.virtuallglab.com/projects.html
I also attach the code. My problem is I had originally set up
an animation with 2 pictures sliding in with some text, and then
wait 4 seconds before sliding out, and then next pictures and text
would slide in and so on, using a setInterval.
The problem is the FOR loop seems to skip the setInterval and
the function "wait", so it just loops quickly and jumps to last
picture, so on the example above, it just slides the last picture
(i=9) and that's it!
Can you not include another function within a FOR statement.
Or is there a way to tell the FOR loop to wait until all motion is
finished?
Any help greatly appreciated
import mx.transitions.*;
import mx.transitions.easing.*;
for (i=0; i<10 ; i++) {
var picLeft = "pics/"+i+".jpg";
var picRight = "pics/"+i+"b.jpg";
var txtToLoad = "text/"+i+".txt";
this.createEmptyMovieClip("leftHolder",1);
leftHolder.loadMovie(picLeft,i,leftHolder.getNextHighestDepth());
leftHolder._x = -200;
leftHolder._y = 15;
var leftTween:Tween = new Tween(leftHolder, "_x",
Strong.easeOut, leftHolder._x, 10, 2, true);
this.createEmptyMovieClip("centerHolder",2);
centerHolder.loadMovie(picRight,i+"b",centerHolder.getNextHighestDepth());
centerHolder._x = 180;
centerHolder._y = 250;
var centerTween:Tween = new Tween(centerHolder, "_y",
Strong.easeOut, centerHolder._y, 15, 2, true);
text._x = 600;
myData = new LoadVars();
myData.onLoad = function(){
text.carText.text = this.content;
myData.load(txtToLoad);
var textTween:Tween = new Tween(text, "_x", Strong.easeOut,
text._x, 420, 2, true);
myInterval = setInterval(wait, 4000);
function wait() {
var leftTweenFinished:Tween = new Tween(leftHolder, "_x",
Strong.easeOut, leftHolder._x, -200, 1, true);
var centerTween:Tween = new Tween(centerHolder, "_y",
Strong.easeOut, centerHolder._y, 250, 1, true);
var textTween2:Tween = new Tween(text, "_x", Strong.easeOut,
text._x, 600, 1, true);
clearInterval(myInterval);
***************************************************************************************** ***

Answer 1

There is no way to tell a for loop to wait. That is not what
they do.
The entire for loop will execute (if possible, and it doesn't
enter some kind of continuous infinite loop) completely before each
time the frame is rendered.
If you want to spread things out over time you need to use
the setInterval -- but not inside a for loop! If you do that you
immediately set however many intervals as your loop has. In this
case you will also assign the ids for those intervals to the same
variable, effectively overwriting the value so you will never be
able to clear most of those intervals.
So you need to rethink you whole structure. Set up some kind
of counter and limit like this:
var slidesToShow:Number=10;
var curSlide:Number=0;
Then have your setInterval increment the curSlide each time
it is called and check to see if it has shown all of them. That is
where your "loop" comes in.
As for the other part of your question -- yes you actually
have two different issues going on -- again you cannot make a for
loop wait for anything. So no there is no way to pause it while you
wait for your tween to end. But you can be notified when a tween
ends.
Check out the documentation about the tween class in the help
files. There you will find the onMotionFinished event. So you can
set up one of those to start whatever needs to be started when the
tween has finished.
You should also use the MovieClipLoader class to load your
images, because you have no idea how long it will take to load
them. Using that class you get a nice event (onLoadInit) that tells
you when the asset is ready to be used.
Finally I'm thinking you might want to use setTimeout instead
of setInterval. It only goes once, while setInterval repeats
forever. So I would think your algorithm would be something like
this.
1. load external asset
2. when ready animate in and set onMotionFinished handler
3. when motion is finished start loading next asset and
setTimeout for 4 seconds.
4. when 4 seconds is up or the clip is loaded (which ever
takes longer) go to 2 and repeat.
If this is going to be run locally on a hard drive or CD you
won't have any problem with the length of time it takes to load the
external assets, but if it is over the web it will take time.