Getting started with components overview

Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 are the professional standard authoring tools for producing high-impact web experiences. Components are the building blocks for the Rich Internet Applications that provide those experiences. A component is a movie clip with parameters that are set while authoring in Macromedia Flash, and ActionScript APIs that allow you to customize the component at runtime. Components are designed to allow developers to reuse and share code, and to encapsulate complex functionality that designers can use and customize without using ActionScript.

Components are built on version 2 (v2) of the Macromedia Component Architecture, which allows you to easily and quickly build robust applications with a consistent appearance and behavior. This book describes how to build applications with v2 components and describes each component's application programming interface (API). It includes usage scenarios and procedural samples for using the Flash MX 2004 or Flash MX Professional 2004 v2 components, as well as descriptions of the component APIs, in alphabetical order.

You can use components created by Macromedia, download components created by other developers, or create your own components.