Chapter 1: About Components - MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-USING COMPONENTS Use Manual

CHAPTER 1
About Components
Components are movie clips with parameters that allow you to modify their appearance and
behavior. A component can be a simple user interface control, such as a radio button or a check
box, or it can contain content, such as a scroll pane; a component can also be non-visual, like the
FocusManager that allows you to control which object receives focus in an application.
Components enable anyone to build complex Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia
Flash MX Professional 2004 applications, even if they don't have an advanced understanding of
ActionScript. Rather than creating custom buttons, combo boxes, and lists, you can drag these
components from the Components panel to add functionality to your applications. You can also
easily customize the look and feel of components to suit your design needs.
Components are built on version 2 of the Macromedia Component Architecture, which allows
you to easily and quickly build robust applications with a consistent appearance and behavior.
The version 2 architecture includes classes on which all components are based, styles and skins
mechanisms that allow you to customize component appearance, a broadcaster/listener event
model, depth and focus management, accessibility implementation, and more.
Each component has predefined parameters that you can set while authoring in Flash. Each
component also has a unique set of ActionScript methods, properties, and events, also called an
API (application programming interface), that allows you to set parameters and additional
options at runtime.
Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 include many new Flash components and
several new versions of components that were included in Flash MX. For a complete list of
components included with Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004, see "Installing
components" on page 12. You can also download components built by members of the Flash
community at the Macromedia Exchange at www.macromedia.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm.
This chapter contains the following sections:
Installing components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Where component files are stored . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Benefits of using components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Categories of components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
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