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 7
About component types
Flex uses the following types of components:
UI controls UI controls are visual components that represent discrete elements of a user
interface (Checkbox, ComboBox, TextInput components, and so on) and are the interface
between application data and the user.
Containers Containers are shells for different types of content. For example, Panel is a
container. The mx.containers.Container class is the base class for containers. You generally would
not use the instructions in this chapter to create new containers because they are nonvisual.
Data components Data components are nonvisual components that connect, contain, and
process content. Use data components with UI controls. The process for connecting them is
called data binding, where a change in data in one component forces an event to occur in other
dependent components. Examples of data components are the WebServiceConnector, DataSet,
and the Validator. A typical application contains multiple instances of a data component. You
generally would not use the instructions in this chapter to create new data components because
they are nonvisual.
Managers Managers are nonvisual components that are responsible for managing some type of
system resource. Examples of managers include the FocusManager and the DepthManager. A
typical application contains only one instance of a manager, and these managers are normally
instantiated if they are needed by components that rely on them. You generally would not use the
instructions in this chapter to create new managers because they are nonvisual.
Working in the Flash environment
The Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 environments are set up to
make the structure of classes and components logical. You must take the following steps to
prepare your Flash environment for extending or creating new components for Flex:
1.
Import Flex components into Flash, and make Flex classes available to Flash.
2.
Set the Flash classpath to point to the Flex classes.
If you have not created a component before, you should also familiarize yourself with the asset
types (such as graphics, symbols, class files, and FLA files) that you will be working with.
The following sections describe these steps and component assets in detail.
About component assets
When creating a new visual component for Flex in Flash MX 2004, you start with a FLA file and
add or change the skins, graphics, ActionScript class files, and other assets. You then export the
files as SWC files, which are then used by Flex as components.
This section describes the types of assets that you work with to create your component in Flash.