User Guide
Table Of Contents
- Contents
- Working with Flash MX 2004
- Creating Basic Components in Flash MX 2004
- Creating Advanced Components in Flash MX 2004
- Contents
- About Creating components
- Writing the component’s ActionScript code
- Simple example of a class file
- General process for writing a class file
- Selecting a parent class
- Identifying the class, symbol, and owner names
- About the component instantiation life cycle
- Writing the constructor
- Specifying clip parameters
- Implementing the constructObject2() method
- Implementing the init() method
- Implementing the createChildren() method
- Implementing the commitProperties() method
- Implementing the measure() method
- Implementing the layoutChildren() method
- Implementing the draw() method
- Defining getters and setters
- Component metadata
- Defining component parameters
- Handling events
- Using the Event metadata
- About invalidation
- Skinning custom controls
- Adding styles
- Making components accessible
- Improving component usability
- Best practices when designing a component
- Using the ModalText example
- Troubleshooting
- Index
Working in the Flash environment 11
To change the global classpath:
1.
Select Edit > Preferences.
The Preferences dialog box appears.
2.
Select the ActionScript tab.
3.
Click the ActionScript 2.0 Settings button.
The Classpath dialog box appears.
4.
Add, remove, or edit entries in the Classpath dialog box.
5.
Click OK to save your changes.
About importing classes
Flash imports all files referenced in ActionScript classes with
import statements.
For example, if your component extends the UIObject class and makes use of assets found in the
SimpleButton and TextInput controls, you import the following classes in your class file:
import mx.core.UIObject;
import mx.controls.SimpleButton;
import mx.controls.TextInput;
When importing classes, you can use a wildcard to import all classes in a particular package; for
example:
import mx.controls.*;
Flash only imports the necessary classes when compiling the component.
Flash finds classes that you import by searching the directories in the classpath. For most
situations, your local Flash classpath must consist of at least the following entries:
• $(LocalData)/Flex Classes
• . (the dot)
The $(LocalData)/Flex Classes points to the classes that you extracted in “Adding Flex classes and
components to the Flash IDE” on page 8. The dot (.) indicates the current working directory in
Flash. This is the directory in which you store your FLA file.
To import a custom class or package of classes, you can store the file or the directory structure in
the same directory as the FLA file so that Flash will find them with these classpath settings.