Using Components > Components overview

 

Components overview

Components are complex movie clips that have defined parameters, which are set during document authoring, and a unique set of ActionScript methods that allow you to set parameters and additional options at runtime. Components replace and extend Smart Clips introduced in earlier versions of Macromedia Flash.

Macromedia Flash MX includes seven Flash UI components: CheckBox, ComboBox, ListBox, PushButton, RadioButton, ScrollBar and ScrollPane. You can use these components separately to add simple user interaction to Flash movies, or together to create a complete user interface for Web forms or applications.

You can customize the appearance of components in several ways:

Edit the color and text formatting properties defined for all Flash UI components in the global style format

Edit the component skins

Create new custom style formats using the ActionScript FStyleFormat object

Replace the skin elements that make up the component's skin with new skin elements that you create

You should complete the Introduction to Components Tutorial (Help > Tutorials > Introduction to Components) before using components.

You can also create custom components using the ActionScript language. For more information, see the Flash Support Center.