In PHP there is a very useful function called array_count_values. It sorts an array by returning a 2 dimensional array consisting of non duplicate elements as keys, and values determined by how many times these elements appeared in the original array.

So, for example, an array [“red”,”green”,”blue”,”red”] would be converted into [“red” => 2, “green” =>1, “blue” => 1]. Duplicate elements are removed and the new array indicates how many times each, now unique value occurred in the array.

Unfortunately, Actionscript has no such function built in, so I made one. It is a modification of Senocular’s array.unique() prototype (which you can find in his Actionscript library), however rather than simply returning a unique array, it returns the 2 dimensional array mentioned above. Read : AS2 Array count values »

Update: AS3 Version using TweenLite is available here

In this experiment, you can drag the boxes; when you release them the stack will shuffle to accommodate the dropped box.

I have recently been working on building an application in which I wanted to use Photoshop style ‘layers’ which the user could create, drag onto different depths and delete.

The basic idea was for the user to click and drag ‘layers’, and drop them in between others. This would cause the other layers to reposition to accommodate the new layer and to fill the gap which it had left in it’s old position. Get it? Read : Dynamic Stacking »

Following another post regarding using stage listeners to dynamically resize and position MovieClips in Flash, I was asked to upload and FLA as an example. The previous code can just be pasted into the actions panel and will run without any MovieClips needed, and was designed to show the StageListener function rather than showcase a particular dynamic layout.

Download: Fluid Flash Layout Example Read : Dynamic Positioning Continued »