Coordy AS3 Layout Framework

// August 5th, 2009 // Flash

There’s a brand new AS3 Framework on the block and it’s called Coordy. The Framework is available under a MIT License and was created by P.J. Onori, also known as “SomeRandomDude“. What’s so great about Coordy is that any DisplayObject can be arranged into both 2D and 3D layouts very easily and very efficiently due to how lightweight it is. This allows for some very creative and unique ways to arrange and display any kind of object.

What Is It?

Coordy is a light Actionscript 3 layout framework which offers a simple way to organize DisplayObjects into various different 2d and 3d layouts. The layouts are light, powerful and virtual organizers that simply manage x/y/z coordinates of DisplayObjects – meaning your objects are not tightly bound to any specific layout.

What Does It Do?

Once a DisplayObject is added to a layout, a node instance is created which points to the DisplayObject. The node is the link between the layout and DisplayObject. The node contains all the coordinate information for that DisplayObject, so that even if a DisplayObject is moved, the coordinate information for it persists due to its corresponding node. This is why the DisplayObject can belong to an infinite amount of layouts, because the layout merely handles its created node objects which, in turn, have a link to the DisplayObject.

Layouts are merely abstract organizers, they do not need to be added/removed from the stage. Nonetheless, they have tweenable properties such as x, y, z, width, height, depth etc. When a display property such as width is altered, the layout adjusts all the cells and the nodes’s links to fit in the layout’s new dimension. This allows you to “tween” a layout even though it does not truly exist on the stage.

Layouts will also adapt when nodes/DislpayObjects are removed from the layout. This allows simple motion-based layout management capabilities.