01. v1 Components, We Hardly Knew Ye   02. Button Component   03. Alert Component   04. Checkbox Component   05. Radio Buttons   06. The List Box family of Components   07. Date Chooser Component   08. Date Field Component   09. Label Component

10. Loader / Progress Bar Components   11. Numeric Stepper Component   12. Text Area/Input Components   13. Menu / Menu Bar Components   14. Scroll Pane Component   15. Window Component   16. Tree Component   17. Accordion Component   18. Conclusion

- discuss this tutorial -

go to next page

01. Version 1 Components, We Hardly Knew Ye.

You have, no doubt, heard that Flash MX 2004 has a new component architecture. (If you haven't read all about the new features in Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX 2004 Pro in Peter Elst's excellent review of Flash MX 2004). Flash MX 2004 now sports 21 UI Components, some of which may be familiar to you from before and others that are new to the latest version. In this tutorial, I will take you through each of these components and show you how to use them.

In addition to the UI components, Flash MX 2004 Pro comes with Media Components and Data Components, which I will not be covering this is tutorial. To learn about the Media Components, read Phillip Kerman's tutorial on Flash MX 2004 Professional Video and Peter Hall's tutorial on Databinding with Flash MX 2004 will demonstrate some of the Data Components and databinding.

Although each of the components has distinct properties and methods, they all share some common methods from version 2 of the Macromedia Component Architecture. The new architecture differs from that of the version 1 components in several fundamental ways.

One of the biggest changes to the component architecture is the new event model. Gone are the days of using setClickHandler() to set up call back functions to handle events. Version 2 components now all broadcast events which you need to subscribe to individually. One notable exception to this is the Alert component which still implements a callback which you can specify as an argument when calling its show() method.

Another big change has to do with skinning components and the introduction of themes. I won't be going into component skinning in this tutorial, as Peter Elst has done a commendable job of explaining the process in detail in his excellent tutorial on Skinning Flash MX 2004 Components.

The best way to learn about the components is to use them, so roll up your sleeves and follow along!

- discuss this tutorial -

go to next page