User manual MACROMEDIA FLEX-GETTING STARTED WITH FLEX

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Other product names, logos, designs, titles, words, or phrases mentioned within this publication may be trademarks, service marks, or trade names of Macromedia, Inc. or other entities and may be registered in certain jurisdictions including internationally. [. . . ] Including ActionScript files Flex lets you point to external ActionScript files in your <mx:Script> tags. At compile-time, the compiler copies the entire contents of the file into your MXML application. As with ActionScript in an <mx:Script> block, ActionScript in included files must be variable declarations or in functions. You cannot define classes in included files. Variables and functions defined in an included ActionScript file are available to any component in the MXML file. An included ActionScript file is not the same as an imported ActionScript class. Flex provides access to the included file's variables and functions, but does not add a new class, since the MXML file itself is a class. 48 Chapter 3: Using ActionScript Included ActionScript files do not need to be in the same directory as the MXML file. However, you should organize your ActionScript files in a logical directory structure. Flex detects changes in ActionScript files using timestamps. If the file has changed since the last request, Flex regenerates the application before responding to the client. If you change the ActionScript in one of the imported ActionScript files, the next time the application is requested, the changes appear. There are two ways to include an external ActionScript file in your Flex application: · The source attribute of the <mx:Script> tag. This is the preferred method for including external ActionScript class files. · The #include directive inside <mx:Script> blocks. The following sections describe these two methods of including an external ActionScript file. Using the source attribute You use the source attribute of the <mx:Script> tag to include external ActionScript files in your Flex applications. This provides a way to make your MXML files less cluttered and promotes code reuse across different applications. The following example shows the contents of the IncludedFile. as file: public function computeSum(a:Number, b:Number):Number { return a + b; } The following example imports the contents of the IncludedFile. as file. This file is located in the same directory as the MXML file. <?xml version="1. 0"?> <mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www. macromedia. com/2003/mxml"> <mx:Script source="IncludedFile. as" /> <mx:TextInput id="ta1st" text="3"/> <mx:TextInput id="ta2nd" text="3"/> <mx:TextArea id="taMain"/> <mx:Button id="b1" label="Compute Sum" click="taMain. text=computeSum(Number(ta1st. text), Number(ta2nd. text))"/> </mx:Application> The source attribute of the <mx:Script> tag supports both relative and absolute paths. For more information, see "Referring to external files" on page 51. You cannot use the source attribute and wrap ActionScript code inside the same <mx:Script> tag. To include a file and write ActionScript in the MXML file, use two <mx:Script> tags. Using ActionScript in Flex applications 49 Using the #include directive The #include directive is an ActionScript statement that copies the contents of the specified file into your MXML file. The #include directive uses the following syntax: #include "file_name" The following example includes the myfunctions. as file: <mx:Script> <![CDATA[ #include "myfunctions. as" . . . ]]> </mx:Script> Note: The #include directive is a special kind of ActionScript statement. [. . . ] For more information, see Chapter 20, "Using Styles and Fonts, " in Developing Flex Applications. Data validation Data formatting Cursor management History management Drag-and-drop management ToolTips Styles, fonts, and themes 80 Chapter 4: Architecting Flex Applications Feature Behaviors Description Behaviors let you add animation or sound to applications in response to user or programmatic action. For more information, see Chapter 21, "Using Behaviors, " in Developing Flex Applications. Repeaters let you dynamically repeat any number of controls or containers specified in MXML tags, at runtime. For more information, see Chapter 8, "Dynamically Repeating Controls and Containers, " in Developing Flex Applications. Repeaters Image and media importing You can use MXML tags to import several images into applications. [. . . ]