EmbedPano and Transitions - Problem

[jasonmac]

Hey All,

I've been struggling with this issue all day. The problem is when using an embed pano and a user clicks one item then another during a transition, the first pano ends up staying on screen frozen.

This problem can been seen even on Particks example for EmbedPano101 (http://flashpanos.com/tutorials/patrick/embedding-fpp-panoramas-another-flash-container#comment-800). I tried simply turning off transitions but the problem still happens even without transitions.

A thing to note is this isn't a loading issue (ie, the pano is still loading when switching to another) but rather a transition one.

WIth transitions set to none, there's an error being thrown as follows:

TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at TransitionEffect/fadeLoaderNone()
at flash.utils::Timer/_timerDispatch()
at flash.utils::Timer/tick()


This causes the first pano to freeze while the subsequent pano is loaded underneath.


With transitions on, I get this error in the same situation:



TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at Hotspots/replacePano()
at TransitionEffect/remove()
at TransitionEffect/fadeLoaderAlpha()
at flash.utils::Timer/_timerDispatch()
at flash.utils::Timer/tick()


I can't stop users from clicking one thumbnail and then another in quick succession, nor can I really on blocking said clicks based on whether they are 100% loaded. The problem happens after the pano has loaded, during the transition from one to another when suddenly you try to load another before the transition has completed (and again this seems to be the case even with transitions turned off).

I noticed someone else had this same issue before (http://flashpanoramas.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1758&highlight=transitions) but there was no resolution.

Does anyone know how to get around this problem? Should I just force completely new loader instances of a pano on each load and forget using the hotspot transitions all together?

[myksa]

Hi,

I don't have a workaround for Your problem, but this might help.

When you go to publish settings of Your fla source file, select "permit debugging" option and when this problem occurs, you will see exact line in fla file causing errors.
I also struggled with some stupid errors for a long time, but when I checked this option finding bugs was much faster.

Hope it helps
Myksa

[jasonmac]

Hi,

I don't have a workaround for Your problem, but this might help.

When you go to publish settings of Your fla source file, select "permit debugging" option and when this problem occurs, you will see exact line in fla file causing errors.
I also struggled with some stupid errors for a long time, but when I checked this option finding bugs was much faster.

Hope it helps
Myksa
Hi Myksa, thanks for the reply!

These errors are coming from FPP, not my code. I do not have the source files for the Flash Panorama Player so I cannot debug the problem.

[myksa]

Yes, but such errors are generally caused by some errors in plugins or main application which is embedding FPP, so You can try to set this option in main application or plugins that You have written or modified by yourself. Looking at error messages I would guess that TransitionEffect.fla is causing all the problems.

Myksa

[jasonmac]

I may not have explained things clearly. This is a straight out-of-the-box problem of FPP. I have no custom plug-ins, other than the hotspot plug-in, and this problem can even been seen on other sites using the same procedure (Embedded Pano). This is solely an issue with the transitions in the Hotspot plug-in (which comes with FPP), and I haven no means of altering/fixing the problem.

The errors I listed above are coming from FPP, not my code. They are generated when you try to load another pano before a transition to/from a previous pano has completed. I cannot find any means to stop the transition and even turning transitions off, oddly enough, still calls functions that "act" like transitions and causing problems (namely the replacePano() call at the end).

There's also no way for me to find out if a transition is in progress. If I could do this then I suppose I could block the loading of another pano until the previous transition has completed. Note that this is not the same issue as loading another pano before the previous pano had finished loading... loading and transitions are two separate stages.

I guess this is more a question for the creator than the forum. I just thought maybe others had found a work around.

Thanks.