When placing clips in swfmill simple, is the depth attribute supposed to be required? If so, there should probably be an error or warning when it’s omitted (There doesn’t seem to be, currently). If not, then there’s a bug when doing so: If there’s multiple frames, all omitting the depth attribute, then only the first frame is ever actually shown.
In the sense that there's no code to choose a default for you, yes, it’s supposed to be required :). What actually happens is that swfmill generates <PlaceObject2 depth="" ... >, which I am guessing translates into depth="0" in the output SWF. That usually works, more by luck than judgement, but what doesn’t work is the code that kicks in if you’re replacing a previous object at the same depth.
Two possible solutions:
Report an error and die if there is no explicit depth.
Choose a reasonably sane default somehow.
Three possible ways to choose a default:
Always 0 (confusing/unhelpful, but closest to current behaviour).
The lowest unused depth in the current frame (behaves weirdly if you don’t replace all objects in every frame).
The lowest unused depth in all frames (but then the default behaviour is for all objects persist from one frame to the next).
Normally I’d prefer to choose a default but I think that, whatever default we choose, the resulting behaviour will be confusing once multiple frames come into play. An alternative would be to make depth mandatory if there are multiple frames, but optional otherwise.
2009/8/19 Nick Sabalausky:
In the sense that there's no code to choose a default for you, yes, it’s supposed to be required :). What actually happens is that swfmill generates
<PlaceObject2 depth="" ... >, which I am guessing translates intodepth="0"in the output SWF. That usually works, more by luck than judgement, but what doesn’t work is the code that kicks in if you’re replacing a previous object at the same depth.Two possible solutions:
Three possible ways to choose a default:
0(confusing/unhelpful, but closest to current behaviour).Normally I’d prefer to choose a default but I think that, whatever default we choose, the resulting behaviour will be confusing once multiple frames come into play. An alternative would be to make depth mandatory if there are multiple frames, but optional otherwise.