Flash CS3 component creation : Getting into it

Hi,lets now go for creating an SWC component and then convert this component to a FLA component. Well, what does that mean ? Yes, that means the code for both type of components remains the same. That is a very nice thing, one should not write codes for both type of components differently. Only the creation process of FLA-component will have some more steps. After getting into the component framework and understanding it, I found the component creation process is not that tough as I thought. Its just the unavailability of documentation, which scared me.

The whole component creation framework revolves around the concept of “Invalidation and Validation”. We talk about that in a separate post in detail. Here we will discuss about the creation process of the component first and then discuss the framework. But one must know the “Invalidation and Validation” process, so let me tell this in a very short description.

Invalidation-Validation framework : If something changes in a component, which affects the look of the component (ex : height, width, skin etc) to change, the component goes to “invalidate” state.This is the default behavior if the component uses the V3 component framework. So, if a component is marked as “invalidate”, to make it validate “draw()” method is called and this call is automatic, one should try to avoid calling “draw()” directly. This “draw()” method, redraws the component and marks the component as “valid”. Now, this “valid” component is ready to be used by the user. [ Please follow part6 of Jeff Kamerer's article ]