Question

I know the method MouseEvent.updateAfterEvent() or KeyboardEvent.updateAfterEvent() which will force a re-render of the stage just after the event is handled rather than waiting for the next frame.

However, I need a method to force an immediate render at the very moment I call it. Is there such a method?

Actually my problem comes from the demential design of ActionScript’s printing API (PrintJob). Inconsistent with the whole ActionScript architecture, when you call PrintJob.start(), everything is completely frozen while the printing dialog is shown until the user clicks the print or cancel button. Execution of any code after the PrintJob.start() call is resumed after that.

Among a lot of other much worse issues coming from this gigantic design flaw, there is mine:

public function someMouseOrKeyboardEventHandler() {
  somethingThatUpdatesTheDisplayList();
  var somePrintJob=new PrintJob();
  somePrintJob.start();
  //...
  somePrintJob.send();
}

When this handler of mine is called, the changes made to the display list will not be visible until after the printing dialog has been closed, so I can’t, for example, show something on the screen just before I open the print dialog.

updateAfterEvent() won’t help a bit (already tried it). It won’t change a thing, since it only forces rendering after the event handler code is executed.

Is there any updateRightNow()-like thing?

Answer 1

Nope, you unfortunately can’t force an update in the middle of your code.

You can, however, wait until the next frame to call start() on the PrintJob; this will give Flash time to update the stage before everything freezes.