Custom Initialization

From Gaia Framework Wiki

Contents 1 Overview 2 Before The Site XML Loads 2.1 loadSiteXML() 2.2 AS3 2.3 AS2 3 Before The First Branch Loads 3.1 init() 3.2 initComplete() 3.3 AS3 3.4 AS2

Overview

You can run custom initialization code in Main both before the site.xml loads, or after the site.xml loads but before Gaia navigates to the first branch. This initialization code can be asynchronous and anything you want. If you're going to load a file or anything else that would take time, you might want to give some feedback to the user to let them know the site is not frozen.

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Before The Site XML Loads

To run custom initialization before the site.xml is loaded (such as setting a site.xml path based on a specific language), override the loadSiteXML function in your Main class file.

loadSiteXML()

loadSiteXML() is what triggers Gaia to load the site.xml, so make sure that if you override it, you call the super method when you're finished. You can do this synchronously or asynchronously. Here is an example of what this looks like synchronously:

AS3

override protected function loadSiteXML():void
{
     // do whatever
    super.loadSiteXML();
}

AS2

private function loadSiteXML():void
{
     // do whatever
    super.loadSiteXML();
}

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Before The First Branch Loads

init()

After Gaia parses the site.xml and loads the preloader, it calls init(). If you override init() in your Main class, you can run any code you want before Gaia calls the first goto(). It's sort of like a mini hijack. Because the site.xml is loaded and parsed, you have full access to the site tree and initial site variables. This means you could load some custom asset xml and call addAssets() to any page instead of using indexFirst.

Do not call super.init().

initComplete()

When you're done, you call initComplete(). initComplete() is called similarly to releaseGaia() in the Event Hijacking engine. You can run asynchronous code, like loading a file, before you call initComplete().

Do not override initComplete().

AS3

override protected function init():void 
{
   // do whatever you want
   initComplete();
}

AS2

private function init():Void
{
   // do whatever you want
   initComplete();
}