User Guide

147
7
CHAPTER 7
Collection interface (Flash
Professional only)
The collection class is distributed in the common classes library as a compiled clip symbol. To
access this class, select Window > Common Libraries > Classes, which contains the compiled
clip UtilsClasses.
Collection class (Flash Professional only)
ActionScript Class Name mx.utils.Collection
The collection interface lets you programmatically manage a group of related items, called
collection items. Each collection item in this set has properties that are described in the
metadata of the collection item class definition.
Components can expose properties as collections, which you can manipulate while authoring
by using the Values dialog box from the Component inspector. Using this dialog box, you can
add items, remove items, change properties of items, and change the position of items within
the collection. For more information on collections and collection items, see “About the
Collection tag” in Using Components.
You typically use the collection interface with components that use the Collection metadata
tag to create collection properties. Although you can create, access, and delete Collection
instances programmatically, collections are most often used in the context of a component.
Flash MX Professional 2004 provides implementations of both collection-related interfaces
(CollectionImpl for Collection, and IteratorImpl for Iterator).