Buttons with Dynamic Text in AS3?

[soggybag]

I have been in the habit of making buttons with a dynamic text field. This way assigning a value to the var property of the text field would allow me to reuse the button symbol and assign different text to each.

In AS3 it looks like the text field Var property does not exist any longer.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a work around? I would like to avoid having to make a new symbol for each button.

The var property worked well because it allowed you to change the text field on different frames of a movie clip button. If each text field had the same Var name it would display the same text label.

[johnnyWeiss]

take a look at my posting earlier today. you may have a suggestion on how to solve my problem while you get what you need.

[Flash Gordon]

give the text field an instance name You shouldn't have been using the var property since flash 5!

[soggybag]

Thanks for the reply. This is not a good solution. Using the TextField.text property doesn't allow you to create a label at frame the button may display.

For example, let's say you have a movie clip button with a text field inside. the text field is on a layer with two key frames. One key frame at the _up frame and another at the _over frame. This allows you to adjust the color and other properties of the text field for the rollover effect. The text field is dynamic and has myLabel set as the var.

Setting the myLabel property of the container movie clip allows the text field to display the value at all of it's key frames.

Using the text property, the text field loses it's assigned text when go to the next key frame.

Another thing I noticed is that a button with a text field inside doesn't show the finger or the rollover when you are over the text field.

[Flash Gordon]

maybe not a good solution, but it is your only one

[soggybag]

What do you mean? Which solution is not good and what do think is a better solution?

[Mazoonist]

soggybag,

Here's a solution for you (attached). Hope it helps.

Inside the button, the lines:

this.buttonMode = true;
this.mouseChildren = false;

(on frame 1)
...will allow the movie clip to behave as a button, and the second line will cause the hand cursor to still show over the top of the dynamic text box.

There's always a way to accomplish what you want, and the var box is gone from the properties inspector, anyway. It wasn't a really great idea to begin with. Why not? Because it allowed you to set a variable, but do it in a kind of hidden way, so someone else viewing your file (or you two months or so down the road) might have difficulty finding the darned thing. That makes it hard to figure out how something works.

[Mazoonist]

I was wondering what you meant by the text field not retaining the text on it's different keyframes. If you want it to always retain the text you assign it, don't give it different keyframes, just one. Then fill the rest of the space with frames (F5).

[soggybag]

Thanks for the reply.

I have already used the buttonMode property.

The mouseChildren property I had seen. This fixes the problem with the text field taking focus.

The problem with only adding frames is that the text can not change. If you've designed a button where the style of the text changes you'd need a key frame.

Imagine you have a movie clip that you've set up as a button using the _up and _over frames. At the _up frame your text field shows the button label in black. At the _over frame you'd like the color to be red.

Using the text property you'd need to add some cumbersome actionscript to set the text property when ever your button changed frames.

Using Actionscript to dynamically generate or modify the text field is in-flexible. You'd have to rewrite the code if the design changed. You also have to write extra code.

Using the var property of the text field allows you to make a button that can display any text in any style at any key frame within the button movie clip. Modifying the look of the button is as easy as editing the text field.

Making a button like this allows you to make a button that can be used anywhere in your movie with any label you might need. This way you make a single clip to cover all of your button needs.

There must be a solution in AS 3.

[Mazoonist]

Ok, I see more clearly now what you mean. Interesting. I'll be working on it.