User Guide
About compiled clips and SWC files 17
The Halo theme provides a ready-made, responsive, and flexible user interface for applications.
Halo is the default theme that the version 2 components use. (See “About themes” on page 77.)
Manager classes provide an easy way to handle focus and depth in a application. (See “Creating
custom focus navigation” on page 50 and “Managing component depth in a document”
on page 51.)
The base classes UIObject and UIComponent provide core methods, properties, and events to
components that extend them. (See “UIComponent class” on page 793 and “UIObject class”
on page 808.)
Packaging as a SWC file allows easy distribution and concealable code. See Chapter 7,
“Creating Components,” on page 915.
Built-in data binding is available through the Component inspector. For more information, see
Using Flash > Data Integration.
An easily extendable class hierarchy using ActionScript 2.0 allows you to create unique
namespaces, import classes as needed, and subclass easily to extend components. See Chapter 7,
“Creating Components,” on page 915 and Flash ActionScript Language Reference.
About compiled clips and SWC files
Components included with Flash MX 2004 or Flash MX Professional 2004 are not FLA files—
they are compiled clips that have been packaged into SWC files. SWC is the Macromedia file
format for distributing components; it contains a compiled clip, the component’s ActionScript
class file, and other files that describe the component. For details about SWC files, see “Exporting
and distributing a component” on page 953.
When you place a SWC file in the First Run/Components folder, the component appears in the
Components panel. When you add a component to the Stage from the Components panel, a
compiled clip symbol is added to the library.
A compiled clip is a package of precompiled symbols and ActionScript. It’s used to avoid
recompiling symbols and code that aren’t going to change. A movie clip can also be “compiled” in
Flash and converted to a compiled clip symbol. For example, a movie clip with a lot of
ActionScript code that doesn’t change often could be turned into a compiled clip. The compiled
clip symbol behaves just like the movie clip symbol from which it was compiled, but compiled
clips appear and publish much faster than regular movie clip symbols. Compiled clips can’t be
edited, but they do have properties that appear in the Property inspector and the Component
inspector.
To compile a movie clip symbol:
• Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Macintosh) the movie clip in the Library panel, and
then select Convert to Compiled Clip.
To export a SWC file:
• Select the movie clip in the Library panel and right-click (Windows) or Control-click
(Macintosh), and then select Export SWC File.
Note: Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 continue to support FLA components.