Flash CS4 Gotchas

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Submitted by drewish on Tue, 2009-11-03 16:50

I've been banging my head against Flash for the last few days and started trying to document a few things.

Can't import fl.controls

For some reason Adobe didn't include them by default so you'll need to add the path to the project.

  1. Open the File > Publish Settings... menu item
  2. Click the Flash tab
  3. Click the Settings... button
  4. Click the Source Path tab
  5. Click the + button and paste in: $(AppConfig)/Component Source/ActionScript 3.0/User Interface

Can't use a Tween on a scrollRect

The Tween class can only change a simple property and the scrollRect need to be changed and the reassigned before it will update. The solution is to add new property to the class and Tween that instead:

  
public function get scrollX():Number {
  if (this.scrollRect) {
    return this.scrollRect.x;
  }
  return 0;
}   

public function set scrollX(value:Number) {
  var r:Rectangle = this.scrollRect;
  if (r) {
    r.x = value;
    this.scrollRect = r;
  }
}

Then you can use a Tween:

  tween = new Tween(this, "scrollX", Strong.easeOut, scrollX, scrollX + 100, 1, true);

Also, you'll want to keep a reference to the Tween object so that it doesn't get garbage collected half way through the animation.

Can't use named HTML entities

Flash's TextField only supports a small subset of named HTML entities (< > & " '). If you're displaying HTML from users or a CMS you'll find that things like ° slips by so you'll need to convert the named entities to their numeric versions.

Update: I'd originally tried using PHP's HTML entity table to build some ActionScript 3 conversion code but it turned out it was missing a lot of common entities like em and en dashes. To account for these I converted the Wikipedia's List of XML and HTML character entity references into this format.

The framework for this code was taken from here.

public class HappyHtml {
  protected static var numberedEntities:Array = [
    '"', '&', ''', '<', '>', ' ', '¡',
    '¢', '£', '¤', '¥', '¦', '§', '¨',
    '©', 'ª', '«', '¬', '­', '®', '¯',
    '°', '±', '²', '³', '´', 'µ', '¶',
    '·', '¸', '¹', 'º', '»', '¼', '½',
    '¾', '¿', 'À', 'Á', 'Â', 'Ã', 'Ä',
    'Å', 'Æ', 'Ç', 'È', 'É', 'Ê', 'Ë',
    'Ì', 'Í', 'Î', 'Ï', 'Ð', 'Ñ', 'Ò',
    'Ó', 'Ô', 'Õ', 'Ö', '×', 'Ø', 'Ù',
    'Ú', 'Û', 'Ü', 'Ý', 'Þ', 'ß', 'à',
    'á', 'â', 'ã', 'ä', 'å', 'æ', 'ç',
    'è', 'é', 'ê', 'ë', 'ì', 'í', 'î',
    'ï', 'ð', 'ñ', 'ò', 'ó', 'ô', 'õ',
    'ö', '÷', 'ø', 'ù', 'ú', 'û', 'ü',
    'ý', 'þ', 'ÿ', 'Œ', 'œ', 'Š', 'š',
    'Ÿ', 'ƒ', 'ˆ', '˜', 'Α', 'Β', 'Γ',
    'Δ', 'Ε', 'Ζ', 'Η', 'Θ', 'Ι', 'Κ',
    'Λ', 'Μ', 'Ν', 'Ξ', 'Ο', 'Π', 'Ρ',
    'Σ', 'Τ', 'Υ', 'Φ', 'Χ', 'Ψ', 'Ω',
    'α', 'β', 'γ', 'δ', 'ε', 'ζ', 'η',
    'θ', 'ι', 'κ', 'λ', 'μ', 'ν', 'ξ',
    'ο', 'π', 'ρ', 'ς', 'σ', 'τ', 'υ',
    'φ', 'χ', 'ψ', 'ω', 'ϑ', 'ϒ', 'ϖ',
    ' ', ' ', ' ', '‌', '‍', '‎', '‏',
    '–', '—', '‘', '’', '‚', '“', '”',
    '„', '†', '‡', '•', '…', '‰', '′',
    '″', '‹', '›', '‾', '⁄', '€', 'ℑ',
    '℘', 'ℜ', '™', 'ℵ', '←', '↑', '→',
    '↓', '↔', '↵', '⇐', '⇑', '⇒', '⇓',
    '⇔', '∀', '∂', '∃', '∅', '∇', '∈',
    '∉', '∋', '∏', '∑', '−', '∗', '√',
    '∝', '∞', '∠', '∧', '∨', '∩', '∪',
    '∫', '∴', '∼', '≅', '≈', '≠', '≡',
    '≤', '≥', '⊂', '⊃', '⊄', '⊆', '⊇',
    '⊕', '⊗', '⊥', '⋅', '⌈', '⌉', '⌊',
    '⌋', '〈', '〉', '◊', '♠', '♣', '♥',
    '♦',
  ];
  protected static var namedEntities:Array = [
    '"', '&', ''', '<', '>', ' ', '¡',
    '¢', '£', '¤', '¥', '¦', '§', '¨',
    '©', 'ª', '«', '¬', '­', '®', '¯',
    '°', '±', '²', '³', '´', 'µ', '¶',
    '·', '¸', '¹', 'º', '»', '¼', '½',
    '¾', '¿', 'À', 'Á', 'Â', 'Ã', 'Ä',
    'Å', 'Æ', 'Ç', 'È', 'É', 'Ê', 'Ë',
    'Ì', 'Í', 'Î', 'Ï', 'Ð', 'Ñ', 'Ò',
    'Ó', 'Ô', 'Õ', 'Ö', '×', 'Ø', 'Ù',
    'Ú', 'Û', 'Ü', 'Ý', 'Þ', 'ß', 'à',
    'á', 'â', 'ã', 'ä', 'å', 'æ', 'ç',
    'è', 'é', 'ê', 'ë', 'ì', 'í', 'î',
    'ï', 'ð', 'ñ', 'ò', 'ó', 'ô', 'õ',
    'ö', '÷', 'ø', 'ù', 'ú', 'û', 'ü',
    'ý', 'þ', 'ÿ', 'Œ', 'œ', 'Š', 'š',
    'Ÿ', 'ƒ', 'ˆ', '˜', 'Α', 'Β', 'Γ',
    'Δ', 'Ε', 'Ζ', 'Η', 'Θ', 'Ι', 'Κ',
    'Λ', 'Μ', 'Ν', 'Ξ', 'Ο', 'Π', 'Ρ',
    'Σ', 'Τ', 'Υ', 'Φ', 'Χ', 'Ψ', 'Ω',
    'α', 'β', 'γ', 'δ', 'ε', 'ζ', 'η',
    'θ', 'ι', 'κ', 'λ', 'μ', 'ν', 'ξ',
    'ο', 'π', 'ρ', 'ς', 'σ', 'τ', 'υ',
    'φ', 'χ', 'ψ', 'ω', 'ϑ', 'ϒ', 'ϖ',
    ' ', ' ', ' ', '‌', '‍', '‎', '‏',
    '–', '—', '‘', '’', '‚', '“', '”',
    '„', '†', '‡', '•', '…', '‰', '′',
    '″', '‹', '›', '‾', '⁄', '€', 'ℑ',
    '℘', 'ℜ', '™', 'ℵ', '←', '↑', '→',
    '↓', '↔', '↵', '⇐', '⇑', '⇒', '⇓',
    '⇔', '∀', '∂', '∃', '∅', '∇', '∈',
    '∉', '∋', '∏', '∑', '−', '∗', '√',
    '∝', '∞', '∠', '∧', '∨', '∩', '∪',
    '∫', '∴', '∼', '≅', '≈', '≠', '≡',
    '≤', '≥', '⊂', '⊃', '⊄', '⊆', '⊇',
    '⊕', '⊗', '⊥', '⋅', '⌈', '⌉', '⌊',
    '⌋', '⟨', '⟩', '◊', '♠', '♣', '♥',
    '♦',
  ];

  public static function decode(text:String):String {
    var len:int = namedEntities.length;
    for (var i:int = 0; i < len; i++) {
      var entity:String = namedEntities[i];
      var ch:String = numberedEntities[i];
      if (text.indexOf(entity) > -1) {
        text = text.replace(new RegExp(entity, "g"), ch);
      }
    }
    return text;
  }
}