Question

I found that in the cocos2d Best Practices there is a suggestion to use initWithTexture to initialize sprite subclasses, instead in several books and tutorials I found that you can also use initWithSpriteFrameName. Why is that?

Answer 1

All of the initialization methods in CCSprite use initWithTexture:rect to create the sprite. For example,

-(id) initWithFile:(NSString*)filename
{
    NSAssert(filename!=nil, @"Invalid filename for sprite");

    CCTexture2D *texture = [[CCTextureCache sharedTextureCache] addImage: filename];
    if( texture ) {
        CGRect rect = CGRectZero;
        rect.size = texture.contentSize;
        return [self initWithTexture:texture rect:rect];
    }

    [self release];
    return nil;
}

Other functions (initWithFile, initWithSpriteFrame, initWithSpriteFrameName, et cetera) also call initWithTexture:rect either directly or indirectly. If your CCSprite subclass has any special initialization that needs to take place (as it ostensibly will, since you’re subclassing another class), doing it in initWithTexture:rect guarantees that it will be run.