Flash CS4 Professional ActionScript 2.0

About the Collection tag

Use the Collection tag to describe an array of objects that can be modified as a collection of items in the Values dialog box while authoring. The type of the objects is identified by the collectionItem attribute. A collection property contains a series of collection items that you define in a separate class. This class is either mx.utils.CollectionImpl or a subclass of it. The individual objects are accessed through the methods of the class identified by the collectionClass attribute.

A collection property and the Values dialog box

A collection property in the Component inspector and the Values dialog box that appears when you click the magnifying glass.

The syntax for the Collection tag is as follows:

[Collection (name="name", variable="varname", collectionClass="mx.utils.CollectionImpl", collectionItem="coll-item-classname", identifier="string")] 
public var varname:mx.utils.Collection;

The following table describes the attributes of the Collection tag:

Attribute

Type

Description
name

String

(Required) Name that appears in the Component inspector for the collection.
variable

String

(Required) ActionScript variable that points to the underlying Collection object (for example, you might name a Collection parameter Columns, but the underlying variable attribute might be __columns).

collectionClass

String

(Required) Specifies the class type to be instantiated for the collection property. This is usually mx.utils.CollectionImpl, but it can also be a class that extends mx.utils.CollectionImpl.
collectionItem

String

(Required) Specifies the class of the collection items to be stored within the collection. This class includes its own inspectable properties that are exposed through metadata.
identifier

String

(Required) Specifies the name of an inspectable property within the collection item class that Flash uses as the default identifier when the user adds a new collection item through the Values dialog box. Each time a user creates a new collection item, Flash sets the item name to identifier plus a unique index (for example, if identifier=name, the Values dialog box displays name0, name1, name2, and so on).

For more information, see Collection Properties.