Using Components Trademarks Add Life to the Web, Afterburner, Aftershock, Andromedia, Allaire, Animation PowerPack, Aria, Attain, Authorware, Authorware Star, Backstage, Bright Tiger, Clustercats, ColdFusion, Contribute, Design In Motion, Director, Dream Templates, Dreamweaver, Drumbeat 2000, EDJE, EJIPT, Extreme 3D, Fireworks, Flash, Flash Lite, Flex, Fontographer, FreeHand, Generator, HomeSite, JFusion, JRun, Kawa, Know Your Site, Knowledge Objects, Knowledge Stream, Knowledge Track, LikeMinds, Lingo, Live Effects, MacRecorder Logo and Design, Macromedia, Macromedia Action!, Macromedia Breeze, Macromedia Flash, Macromedia M Logo and Design, Macromedia Spectra, Macromedia xRes Logo and Design, MacroModel, Made with Macromedia, Made with Macromedia Logo and Design, MAGIC Logo and Design, Mediamaker, Movie Critic, Open Sesame!, Roundtrip, Roundtrip HTML, Shockwave, Sitespring, SoundEdit, Titlemaker, UltraDev, Web Design 101, what the web can be, and Xtra are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Macromedia, Inc. and may be registered in the United States or in other jurisdictions including internationally. Other product names, logos, designs, titles, words, or phrases mentioned within this publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and may be registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally. Third-Party Information This guide contains links to third-party websites that are not under the control of Macromedia, and Macromedia is not responsible for the content on any linked site. If you access a third-party website mentioned in this guide, then you do so at your own risk. Macromedia provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not imply that Macromedia endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content on those third-party sites. Speech compression and decompression technology licensed from Nellymoser, Inc. (www.nellymoser.com). SorensonTM SparkTM video compression and decompression technology licensed from Sorenson Media, Inc. Opera ® browser Copyright © 1995-2002 Opera Software ASA and its suppliers. All rights reserved. Apple Disclaimer APPLE COMPUTER, INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE ENCLOSED COMPUTER SOFTWARE PACKAGE, ITS MERCHANTABILITY OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES IS NOT PERMITTED BY SOME STATES. THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. THERE MAY BE OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU MAY HAVE WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO STATE. Copyright © 2004 Macromedia, Inc. All rights reserved. This manual may not be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or converted to any electronic or machine-readable form in whole or in part without prior written approval of Macromedia, Inc. Acknowledgments Director: Erick Vera Project Management: Julee Burdekin, Erick Vera Writing: Jay Armstrong, Jody Bleyle, Mary Burger, Francis Cheng, Jen deHaan, Stephanie Gowin, Phillip Heinz, Shimul Rahim, Samuel R. Neff Managing Editor: Rosana Francescato Editing: Mary Ferguson, Mary Kraemer, Noreen Maher, Antonio Padial, Lisa Stanziano, Anne Szabla Production Management: Patrice O'Neill Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Christopher Basmajian, Aaron Begley, John Francis Second Edition: June 2004 Macromedia, Inc. 600 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94103 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: Getting Started with Components . ...................... 7 7 8 8 8 9 9 Intended audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . About the documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Typographical conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terms used in this manual. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Additional resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 1: About Components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 12 13 14 15 15 16 17 18 Installing components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where component files are stored . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benefits of using components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Categories of components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . About version 2 component architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What's new in version 2 components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . About compiled clips and SWC files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Accessibility and components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER 2: Creating an Application with Components (Flash Professional Only) 19 About working with components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 About this tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 View the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 About data integration in the sample application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Build the application architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Bind components to display product information from an external source . . . . . . 31 Add ActionScript to the main Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Test the application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 CHAPTER 3: Working with Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 The Components panel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Adding components to Flash documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Components in the Library panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Setting component parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Sizing components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 3 Deleting components from Flash documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Using code hints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Creating custom focus navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Managing component depth in a document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Components in Live Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 About using a preloader with components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 About loading components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Upgrading version 1 components to version 2 architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 CHAPTER 4: Handling Component Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Using the on() event handler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Using listeners to handle events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Delegating events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 About the event object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 CHAPTER 5: Customizing Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Using styles to customize component color and text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 About themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 About skinning components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 CHAPTER 6: Components Dictionary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Types of components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Other listings in this chapter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 Accordion component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Alert component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Button component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 CellRenderer API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 CheckBox component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Collection interface (Flash Professional only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 ComboBox component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Data binding classes (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 DataGrid component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 DataHolder component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 DataProvider API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 DataSet component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 DateChooser component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 DateField component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367 Delegate class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388 Delta interface (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390 DeltaItem class (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 DeltaPacket interface (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401 DepthManager class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406 EventDispatcher class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415 FocusManager class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Form class (Flash Professional only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430 Iterator interface (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441 Label component. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 List component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 4 Contents Loader component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484 Media components (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497 Menu component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538 MenuBar component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574 NumericStepper component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588 PopUpManager class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601 ProgressBar component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603 RadioButton component. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621 RadioButtonGroup component. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635 RDBMSResolver component (Flash Professional only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636 RectBorder class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647 Screen class (Flash Professional only) . . ...