Flash 8 Cookbook

Chapter 13. Building Flash Forms

Forms are the primary way of gathering user input in any type of computer application, and Flash applications are no exception. If you want to prompt the user for information such as email address, preferences, registration information, and so forth, you’ll likely be using a form of one sort or another. Flash forms are typically made up of Flash components from the User Interface component set. The UI component instances are sometimes referred to as form controls and consist of the following basic types:

Button

A Button component allows the form to respond to mouse clicks. The Button component is very similar to a Button symbol in a general sense, but it is specifically designed to interact with Flash in a standardized manner.

CheckBox

The CheckBox component allows the user place a checkmark in a box next to a question, which is useful for yes/no and true/false questions, for example.

ComboBox

A ComboBox component is more informally referred to as a drop-down menu. Using a combo box, you can present a variety of options from which the user can select just one.

List

A List component is similar to a ComboBox except that the options are displayed slightly differently and you can allow the user to select more than one option.

NumericStepper

A NumericStepper component allows the user to choose from a specified range of numeric values.

RadioButton

A RadioButton operates somewhat similarly to a checkbox in that it can be selected or not. However, radio ...