Question

I know there a bajillion threads on this topic, and maybe I am retarded, but this simply isn’t working and I think I am missing something really key?

Lets say I have sprites _testTarget and _testParent nested like this.

_testParent = new Sprite();
this.addChild(_testParent);

_testTarget = new Sprite()
_testParent.addChild(_testParent);

And lets say I want to get the global cords of _testTarget. When I do localToGlobal I always get back 0,0 when I know for a fact its actual cords are like 200,100

var point:Point = new Point(_testTarget.x, _testTarget.y);
    point = _testTarget.localToGlobal(point);  // returns 0,0

var point:Point = new Point(_testTarget.x, _testTarget.y);
    point = _testTarget.parent.localToGlobal(point);  // returns 0,0

var point:Point = new Point(this.x, this.y);
    point = this.localToGlobal(point);  // returns 0,0

var point:Point = new Point(this.x, this.y);
    point = this.parent.localToGlobal(point);  // Breaks, "parent" is null

If it helps, this class/sprite instantiated inside of a sprite, inside of a sprite, inside of a sprite…etc and the reason its cords are 200,100 are because one of its parent containers is set to that – but I thought localToGlobal was supposed to go all the way to very top layer? Help?

Answer 1

So, props to all you guys suggesting that I look through the rest of my code because it turns out that yes, I am retarded haha. On a hunch (from your advise) I found that the problem had nothing to do with localToGlobal – the problem was that I forgot to wait for the stage to be ready. The solution was very simple:

public function ClassConstructorOrWhatever(){
    addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, handleAddedToStage);

    _testParent = new Sprite();
    this.addChild(_testParent);

    _testTarget = new Sprite()
    _testParent.addChild(_testTarget);
}

private function handleAddedToStage(e:Event):void {
    var point:Point = new Point(_testTarget .x, _testTarget .y);
        point = _testTarget.localToGlobal(point); // RETURNS 200,100!!!! :)
}

So yeah, that was the problem – thanks again guys!