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Object.registerClass() 667

Object.registerClass()

Availability

Flash Player 6. If you are using ActionScript 2.0 classes, you can use the ActionScript 2.0 Class

field in the Linkage Properties or Symbol Properties dialog box to associate an object with a class

instead of using this method. For more information, see “Assigning a class to a movie clip

symbol”. in Using ActionScript in Flash.

Usage

Object.registerClass(symbolID:String, theClass:Function) : Boolean

Parameters

symbolID

String; the linkage identifier of the movie clip symbol or the string identifier for the

ActionScript class.

theClass A reference to the constructor function of the ActionScript class or null to

unregister the symbol.

Returns

A Boolean value: if the class registration succeeds, a value of true is returned; false otherwise.

Description

Method; associates a movie clip symbol with an ActionScript object class. If a symbol doesn’t

exist, Flash creates an association between a string identifier and an object class.

When an instance of the specified movie clip symbol is placed on the Timeline, it is registered to

the class specified by the

theClass parameter rather than to the class MovieClip.

When an instance of the specified movie clip symbol is created by using MovieClip.attachMovie()

or MovieClip.duplicateMovieClip(), it is registered to the class specified by

theClass rather than

to the MovieClip class. If

theClass is null, this method removes any ActionScript class

definition associated with the specified movie clip symbol or class identifier. For movie clip

symbols, any existing instances of the movie clip remain unchanged, but new instances of the

symbol are associated with the default class MovieClip.

If a symbol is already registered to a class, this method replaces it with the new registration.

When a movie clip instance is placed by the Timeline or created using

attachMovie() or

duplicateMovieClip(), ActionScript invokes the constructor for the appropriate class with the

keyword

this pointing to the object. The constructor function is invoked with no parameters.

If you use this method to register a movie clip with an ActionScript class other than MovieClip,

the movie clip symbol doesn’t inherit the methods, properties, and events of the built-in

MovieClip class unless you include the MovieClip class in the prototype chain of the new class.

The following code creates a new ActionScript class called

theClass that inherits the properties

of the MovieClip class:

theClass.prototype = new MovieClip();