What am I doing wrong?

Monkey Forums/Monkey Programming/What am I doing wrong?

Chroma

(Posted 2013) [#1]

I have a class that has an image that I want to load once, because it's Global.

Class Foo
     Global foo_image:Image = LoadImage("foo.png",1,Image.MidHandle)
End Class

When I try to access the foo_image within the class it throws a null surface error (which means it didn't load). But if I do this:

Global foo_image:Image

Class Foo
     Method New()
          foo_image = LoadImage("foo.png",1,Image.MidHandle)
     End Method
End Class

it works fine and I can access it. I just want to be sure I'm not loading a LOT of instances of this image and, that even though I'm loading it with each new Foo that there's only one global image.

Is this valid?

Sledge

(Posted 2013) [#2]

Off the top of my head, maybe the class gets initialised before the gfx gubbins (technical term). Try declaring the global but not loading the image until OnLoad()*?

*Or equivalent -- not Monkeyed for a bit!

ziggy

(Posted 2013) [#3]

you're loading the image before the graphics context exist.
You should not use any Mojo command before the OnCreate has ben called.

therevills

(Posted 2013) [#4]

Yeah, I seen this and come to the conclusion that Monkey doesnt like to set variables in the declaration.

ziggy

(Posted 2013) [#5]

It's explained in the documentation. Monkey does like initialization of fields and globals in clases, but you have to understand that the order in wich this is done can have side effects. A graphics context is required before anything is thrown to it. This has nothing to do with the language itself.

Jesse

(Posted 2013) [#6]

I just want to be sure I'm not loading a LOT of instances of this image..

if you initialize it in the new method, the loadImage will be executed every time you create an instance of the Class and you will be filling memory likewise. I know that for sure. I am not sure if it will be loaded only once if you initialize it in the class declaration but probably will be loaded only once.

wiebow

(Posted 2013) [#7]

You can check in the new() method if the image is loaded before loading it again. But the best way is to initialize the loading of images when the grahpics context has been created. That's what I am doing.

Gerry Quinn

(Posted 2013) [#8]

Unless you have a ton of graphics, it's best to load them all in at a fixed point, sometime during App.OnCreate().

I tend to have my main game window own all the graphics, and it gets instantiated during App.OnCreate(), so GameWindow.New() does the loading.

Raz	(Posted 2013) [#9]

I tend to create an init function within classes for global stuff

Class Thing
  Global dog:Image

  Function Init:Void()
    dog = LoadImage("woop.png")
  End

End

and call Thing.Init() in OnCreate()