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Components are movie clips with parameters that allow you to modify their appearance and behavior. A component can provide any functionality that its creator can imagine. 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 (v2) of the Macromedia Component Architecture, which allows you to easily and quickly build robust applications with a consistent appearance and behavior. The v2 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. You can also download components built by members of the Flash community at the Macromedia Exchange.
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