Component architecture

You can use the Property inspector or the Component Inspector panel to change component parameters to make use of the basic functionality of components. However, if you want greater control over components, you need to use their APIs and understand a little bit about the way they were built.

Flash MX 2004 and Flash MX Professional 2004 components are built using version 2 (v2) of the Macromedia Component Architecture. Version 2 components are supported by Flash Player 6 and Flash Player 7. These components are not always compatible with components built using version 1 (v1) architecture (all components released before Flash MX 2004). Also, v1 components are not supported by Flash Player 7. For more information, see Upgrading v1 components to v2 architecture.

V2 components are included in the Components panel as compiled clip (SWC) symbols. A compiled clip is a component movie clip whose code has been compiled. Compiled clips have built-in live previews and cannot be edited, but you can change their parameters in the Property inspector and Component Inspector panel, just as you would with any component. For more information, see About compiled clips and SWC files.

V2 components are written in ActionScript 2. Each component is a class and each class is in an ActionScript package. For example, a radio button component is an instance of the RadioButton class whose package name is mx.controls. For more information about packages, see Using packages.

All components built with version 2 of the Macromedia Component Architecture are subclasses of the UIObject and UIComponent classes and inherit all properties, methods, and events from those classes. Many components are also subclasses of other components. The inheritance path of each component is indicated in its entry in Components Dictionary.

A snippet from the component class hierarchy.

All components also use the same event model, CSS-based styles, and built-in skinning mechanism. For more information on styles and skinning, see Customizing Components. For more information on event handling, see Working with Components.