Chapter 15. Components

Components are a sophisticated and convenient way to encapsulate code snippets in a form that can be shared and reused. (They were first introduced in Flash 5 as “Smart Clips.”) A Movie Clip becomes a component when you specify the parameters that you want the author to modify in each instance. Effectively, you’re just extending the properties by which Movie Clip instances can vary from the built-in set of properties (such as _alpha and _xscale) to include anything you design.

Although you will see very advanced examples of components in the Components panel when you first launch Flash MX, just because components can be very advanced, they don’t have to be. For example, you can make a simple component that serves to automate a small portion of just one project. The most important fact to realize is that everyone can make components. (We walk through practical uses for some of the Flash UI (User Interface) components in Workshop Chapter 7, “Adapting Built-In Components.”)