About ActionScript 3.0 Components

Adobe® ActionScript® 3.0 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 RadioButton or a CheckBox, or it can contain content, such as a List or DataGrid.

Components allow you to easily and quickly build robust ActionScript applications with consistent behavior and appearance. Rather than creating custom buttons, combo boxes, and lists, you can use the Flash components that implement these controls. Simply drag them from the Components panel into your application document. You can also easily customize the look and feel of these components to suit your application design.

While you can do all of this without an advanced understanding of ActionScript, you can also use ActionScript 3.0 to modify a component’s behavior or implement new behavior. Each component has a unique set of ActionScript methods, properties, and events that make up its application programming interface (API). The API allows you to create and manipulate components while the application is running.

The API also allows you to create new, custom components of your own. You can download components built by members of the Flash community on the Adobe Exchange at www.adobe.com/go/flash_exchange. For information on creating a component, see www.adobe.com/go/learn_fl_creating_components.

The ActionScript 3.0 component architecture includes classes on which all components are based, skins and styles that allow you to customize appearance, an event-handling model, focus management, an accessibility interface, and more.

Note: Adobe Flash CS4 includes ActionScript 2.0 components as well as ActionScript 3.0 components. You cannot mix these two sets of components. You must use one set or the other for a given application. Flash CS4 presents either ActionScript 2.0 components or ActionScript 3.0 components based on whether you open an ActionScript 2.0 or an ActionScript 3.0 file. When you create a new Flash document, you must specify either Flash File (ActionScript 3.0) or Flash File (ActionScript 2.0). When you open an existing document, Flash examines the Publish Settings to determine which set of components to use. For information about ActionScript 2.0 components, see Using Adobe® ActionScript® 2.0 Components.

For a complete list of the Flash ActionScript 3.0 components, see Component types.