User Guide
About version 2 component architecture 17
■ Media components (mx.controls.*)
Media components let you play back and control streaming media; MediaController,
MediaPlayback, and MediaDisplay are media components.
■ User interface components (mx.controls.*)
User interface components (often referred to as “UI Components”) allow you to interact
with an application; for example, the RadioButton, CheckBox, and TextInput
components are user interface controls.
■ Managers (mx.managers.*)
Managers are nonvisual components that allow you to manage a feature, such as focus or
depth, in an application; the FocusManager, DepthManager, PopUpManager,
StyleManager, and SystemManager components are manager components.
■ Screens (mx.screens.*)
The screens category includes the ActionScript classes that allow you to control forms and
slides in Flash.
For a complete list of components, see Components Language Reference.
About version 2 component architecture
You can use the Property inspector or the Component inspector to change component
parameters to make use of the basic functionality of components. However, if you want
greater control over components, you need to use their APIs and understand a little bit about
the way they were built.
Flash components are built with version 2 of the Macromedia Component Architecture.
Version 2 components are supported by Flash Player 6 (6.0.79.0) and later, and ActionScript
2.0. These components are not always compatible with components built using version 1
architecture (all components released before Flash MX 2004). Also, the original version 1
components are not supported by Flash Player 7. For more information, see “Upgrading
version 1 components to version 2 architecture” on page 62.
Version 2 components are included in the Components panel as compiled clip (SWC)
symbols. A compiled clip is a component movie clip whose code has been compiled.
Compiled clips cannot be edited, but you can change their parameters in the Property
inspector and Component inspector, just as you would with any component. For more
information, see “About compiled clips and SWC files” on page 19.
NOTE
Flash MX UI components have been updated to work with Flash Player 7 or later. These
updated components are still based on version 1 architecture. You can download them
from the Macromedia Flash Exchange at www.macromedia.com/go/v1_components.