actionscript3 calculator sound playing

Question

I'm trying to make a math app using as3 in air for android. I have many frames with some stuff like

    stop();
QuestText.text = "0+2"
        Button1.LabelText.text = "6";
        Button2.LabelText.text = "2";
        Button3.LabelText.text = "0";

And I have some sounds: From 1.mp3 to 20.mp3 and plus.mp3 with minus.mp3

var DigitSound0:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound1:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound2:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound3:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound4:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound5:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound6:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound7:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound8:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSound9:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSoundplus:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSoundminus:Sound = new Sound();
var DigitSoundChannel:SoundChannel = new SoundChannel();
DigitSound0.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/0.mp3"));
DigitSound1.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/1.mp3"));
DigitSound2.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/2.mp3"));
DigitSound3.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/3.mp3"));
DigitSound4.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/4.mp3"));
DigitSound5.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/5.mp3"));
DigitSound6.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/6.mp3"));
DigitSound7.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/7.mp3"));
DigitSound8.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/8.mp3"));
DigitSound9.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/9.mp3"));
DigitSoundplus.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/plus.mp3"));
DigitSoundminus.load(new URLRequest(FilePath+"speech/minus.mp3"));

All I need is for example when the problem is "4+5", make as3 play 4.mp3+plus.mp3+5.mp3

I can do it with soundcomplete event after every mp3 in every frame

stop();

DigitSoundChannel.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, DigitSoundComplete);
DigitSoundChannel = DigitSound4.play();
function DigitSoundComplete(event:Event):void 
{
    ThemeSongChannel.removeEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, DigitSoundComplete);
    DigitSoundChannel = DigitSoundplus.play();
    DigitSoundChannel.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, DigitSoundComplete);
    DigitSoundChannel = DigitSound5.play();
    ThemeSongChannel.removeEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, DigitSoundComplete);
}

QuestText.text = "4+5"

        Button1.LabelText.text = "1";
        Button2.LabelText.text = "0";
        Button3.LabelText.text = "4";

but I have more than 300 frames. Is there any easier way?

Answer 1

I won't use the word "easier". But more algorithmic, yes, it is possible. You'll actually be thrilled to learn that official Adobe documentation has an example how to play a sequence of sounds. Lets adapt it to your needs.

First, you need to devise a sound cache so that you could get a sound by character value.

package
{
    import flash.media.Sound;
    import flash.events.Event;

    public class SoundCache
    {
        static private var loadingPlan:int;
        static private var completeHandler:Function;
        static private var hash:Object = new Object;

        // This method will return a Sound object by character value.
        static public function find(name:String):Sound
        {
            return hash[name];
        }

        static public function startEngine(handler:Function):void
        {
            loadingPlan = 12;
            completeHandler = handler;

            for (var i:int = 0; i < 10; i++)
                loadSound(i + "", i + "");

            loadSound("+", "plus");
            loadSound("-", "minus");
        }

        static private function loadSound(name:String, fileName:String):void
        {
            var aSound:Sound = new Sound;

            hash[name] = aSound;

            aSound.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onLoaded);
            aSound.load(FilePath + "speech/" + fileName + ".mp3");
        }

        static private function onLoaded(e:Event):void
        {
            var aSound:Sound = e.target as Sound;

            aSound.removeEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onLoaded);

            loadingPlan--;

            if (loadingPlan == 0)
            {
                if (completeHandler != null)
                {
                    completeHandler();
                    completeHandler = null;
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

So at the start of your application you call:

import SoundCache;

SoundCache.startEngine(onCache);

function onCache():void
{
    trace("All sounds are loaded!");
}

When all the sounds are loaded and ready, you can use them for playing sound sequences. Lets devise a sequence player.

package
{
    import SoundCache;

    import flash.events.Event;

    import flash.media.Sound;
    import flash.media.SoundChannel;

    public class SequencePlayer
    {
        // A list of active sequence players. If you don't keep
        // their references while they are playing,
        // Garbage Collector might go and get them.
        static private var list:Array = new Array;

        static public function play(sequence:String):void
        {
            // Sanity check.
            if (!sequence)
            {
                trace("There's nothing to play!");
                return;
            }

            var aSeq:SequencePlayer = new SequencePlayer;

            list.push(aSeq);

            aSeq.sequence = sequence;
            aSeq.playNext();
        }

        // *** NON-STATIC PART *** //

        private var sequence:String;
        private var channel:SoundChannel;

        private function playNext():void
        {
            var aChar:String;
            var aSound:Sound;

            // While there are still characters in the sequence,
            // search for sound by the first character.
            // If there's no such sound - repeat.
            while (sequence)
            {
                // Get a sound from the cache by single character.
                aChar = sequence.charAt(0);
                aSound = SoundCache.find(aChar);

                // Remove the first character from the sequence.
                sequence = sequence.substr(1);

                // Stop searching if there is a valid next sound.
                if (aSound) break;
            }

            if (aSound)
            {
                // If there is a valid Sound object to play, then play it
                // and subscribe for the relevant event to move to the
                // next sound when this one is done playing.
                channel = aSound.play();
                channel.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, onSound);
            }
            else
            {
                // If sequence is finished and there's no valid
                // sound to play, remove this sequence player
                // from the keepalive list and forget about it.
                var anIndex:int = list.indexOf(this);
                if (anIndex > -1) list.splice(anIndex, 1);
            }
        }

        // Event.SOUND_COMPLETE handler.
        private function onSound(e:Event):void
        {
            // Sanity checks.
            if (!channel) return;
            if (e.target != channel) return;

            // Release the current SoundChannel object.
            channel.removeEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, onSound);
            channel = null;

            // Move on to the next sound if any.
            playNext();
        }
    }
}

Though it all might look frightening so far, we're almost done. At this point, all you need to do to play a random sequence of sounds is to call the SequencePlayer.play(...) method. All the horrors above drills your problem down to this:

import SequencePlayer;

// It will ignore the space charaters so it's fine.
SequencePlayer.play(" 5 + 0 ");

Please keep in mind that though I tried to provide you with well-documented and working solution, I never actually tested it so forgive me a random typo if any.