Determines whether or not the children of the object are mouse enabled. If an object is mouse enabled, a user can interact with it by using a mouse. The default is true.

This property is useful when you create a button with an instance of the Sprite class (instead of using the SimpleButton class). When you use a Sprite instance to create a button, you can choose to decorate the button by using the addChild() method to add additional Sprite instances. This process can cause unexpected behavior with mouse events because the Sprite instances you add as children can become the target object of a mouse event when you expect the parent instance to be the target object. To ensure that the parent instance serves as the target objects for mouse events, you can set the mouseChildren property of the parent instance to false.

No event is dispatched by setting this property. You must use the addEventListener() method to create interactive functionality.

See also

import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;

var container:Sprite = new Sprite();
container.name = "container";
addChild(container);

var circle:Sprite = new Sprite();
circle.name = "circle";
circle.graphics.beginFill(0xFFCC00);
circle.graphics.drawCircle(40, 40, 40);

container.addChild(circle);

container.mouseChildren = false;

container.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, clicked);

function clicked(event:MouseEvent):void {
    trace(event.target.name); // container
}

Returns the number of children of this object.

See also

import flash.display.Sprite;

var container1:Sprite = new Sprite();
var container2:Sprite = new Sprite();

var circle1:Sprite = new Sprite();
circle1.graphics.beginFill(0xFFCC00);
circle1.graphics.drawCircle(40, 40, 40);

var circle2:Sprite = new Sprite();
circle2.graphics.beginFill(0x00CCFF);
circle2.graphics.drawCircle(80, 40, 40);

container2.addChild(container1);
container1.addChild(circle1);
container1.addChild(circle2);

trace(container1.numChildren); // 2
trace(container2.numChildren); // 1
trace(circle1.numChildren); // 0
trace(circle2.numChildren); // 0

Determines whether the children of the object are tab enabled. Enables or disables tabbing for the children of the object. The default is true.

import flash.display.Sprite;

var container:Sprite = new Sprite();
container.tabChildren = false;

var circle1:Sprite = new Sprite();
circle1.graphics.beginFill(0xFFCC00);
circle1.graphics.drawCircle(40, 40, 40);
circle1.tabIndex = 1;

var circle2:Sprite = new Sprite();
circle2.graphics.beginFill(0x00CCFF);
circle2.graphics.drawCircle(120, 40, 40);
circle2.tabIndex = 0;

container.addChild(circle1);
container.addChild(circle2);

Returns a TextSnapshot object for this DisplayObjectContainer instance.

See also

trace(this.textSnapshot.getText(0, this.textSnapshot.charCount));

Calling the new DisplayObjectContainer() constructor throws an ArgumentError exception. You can, however, call constructors for the following subclasses of DisplayObjectContainer:

• new Loader()
• new Sprite()
• new MovieClip()

Adds a child DisplayObject instance to this DisplayObjectContainer instance. The child is added to the front (top) of all other children in this DisplayObjectContainer instance. (To add a child to a specific index position, use the addChildAt() method.)

If you add a child object that already has a different display object container as a parent, the object is removed from the child list of the other display object container.

Parameters

See also

import flash.display.Sprite;

var container1:Sprite = new Sprite();
var container2:Sprite = new Sprite();

var circle1:Sprite = new Sprite();
circle1.graphics.beginFill(0xFFCC00);
circle1.graphics.drawCircle(40, 40, 40);

var circle2:Sprite = new Sprite();
circle2.graphics.beginFill(0x00CCFF);
circle2.graphics.drawCircle(80, 40, 40);

container2.addChild(container1);
container1.addChild(circle1);
container1.addChild(circle2);

trace(container1.numChildren); // 2
trace(container2.numChildren); // 1
trace(circle1.numChildren); // 0
trace(circle2.numChildren); // 0

Adds a child DisplayObject instance to this DisplayObjectContainer instance. The child is added at the index position specified. An index of 0 represents the back (bottom) of the display list for this DisplayObjectContainer object.

For example, the following example shows three display objects, labeled a, b, and c, at index positions 0, 2, and 1, respectively:

If you add a child object that already has a different display object container as a parent, the object is removed from the child list of the other display object container.

Parameters

See also

import flash.display.Sprite;

var container:Sprite = new Sprite();

var circle1:Sprite = new Sprite();
var circle2:Sprite = new Sprite();

container.addChild(circle1);
container.addChildAt(circle2, 0);

trace(container.getChildAt(0) == circle2); // true
trace(container.getChildAt(1) == circle1); // true

Indicates whether the security restrictions would cause any display objects to be omitted from the list returned by calling the DisplayObjectContainer.getObjectsUnderPoint() method with the specified point point. By default, content from one domain cannot access objects from another domain unless they are permitted to do so with a call to the Security.allowDomain() method.

For more information, see the following:

• The security chapter in the Programming ActionScript 3.0 book and the latest comments on LiveDocs
• The Flash Player 9 Security white paper
• The Flash Player Developer Center Topic: Security

The point parameter is in the coordinate space of the Stage, which may differ from the coordinate space of the display object container (unless the display object container is the Stage). You can use the globalToLocal() and the localToGlobal() methods to convert points between these coordinate spaces.

Parameters

See also

import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.Loader;
import flash.system.LoaderContext;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.geom.Point;

var container:Sprite = new Sprite();

var urlReq:URLRequest = new URLRequest("http://localhost/RemoteFile.swf");
var ldr:Loader = new Loader();
var context:LoaderContext = new LoaderContext();
context.checkPolicyFile = false;
ldr.load(urlReq, context);

ldr.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, loaded);
ldr.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, urlNotFound);

function loaded(event:Event):void {
    var pt:Point = new Point(1, 1);
    trace(container.areInaccessibleObjectsUnderPoint(pt)); // true
}

function urlNotFound(event:Event):void {
    trace("The URL was not found."); 
}

Determines whether the specified display object is a child of the DisplayObjectContainer instance or the instance itself. The search includes the entire display list including this DisplayObjectContainer instance. Grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on each return true.

Parameters

import flash.display.Sprite;

var sprite1:Sprite = new Sprite();
var sprite2:Sprite = new Sprite();
var sprite3:Sprite = new Sprite();
var sprite4:Sprite = new Sprite();

sprite1.addChild(sprite2);
sprite2.addChild(sprite3);

trace(sprite1.contains(sprite1)); // true
trace(sprite1.contains(sprite2)); // true
trace(sprite1.contains(sprite3)); // true
trace(sprite1.contains(sprite4)); // false

Returns the child display object instance that exists at the specified index.

Parameters

See also

import flash.display.Sprite;

var container:Sprite = new Sprite();

var sprite1:Sprite = new Sprite();
var sprite2:Sprite = new Sprite();
var sprite3:Sprite = new Sprite();

container.addChild(sprite1);
container.addChild(sprite2);
container.addChildAt(sprite3, 0);

trace(container.getChildAt(0) == sprite3); // true
trace(container.getChildAt(1) == sprite1); // true
trace(container.getChildAt(2) == sprite2); // true

Returns the child display object that exists with the specified name. If more that one child display object has the specified name, the method returns the first object in the child list.

The getChildAt() method is faster than the getChildByName() method. The getChildAt() method accesses a child from a cached array, whereas the getChildByName() method has to traverse a linked list to access a child.

Parameters

See also

import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.DisplayObject;

var container:Sprite = new Sprite();

var sprite1:Sprite = new Sprite();
sprite1.name = "sprite1";
var sprite2:Sprite = new Sprite();
sprite2.name = "sprite2";

container.addChild(sprite1);
container.addChild(sprite2);

var target:DisplayObject = container.getChildByName("sprite1"); 
trace(container.getChildIndex(target)); // 0

Returns the index position of a child DisplayObject instance.

Parameters

import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.DisplayObject;

var container:Sprite = new Sprite();

var sprite1:Sprite = new Sprite();
sprite1.name = "sprite1";
var sprite2:Sprite = new Sprite();
sprite2.name = "sprite2";

container.addChild(sprite1);
container.addChild(sprite2);

var target:DisplayObject = container.getChildByName("sprite1"); 
trace(container.getChildIndex(target)); // 0

Returns an array of objects that lie under the specified point and are children (or grandchildren, and so on) of this DisplayObjectContainer instance. Any child objects that are inaccessible for security reasons are omitted from the returned array. To determine whether this security restriction affects the returned array, call the areInaccessibleObjectsUnderPoint() method.

The point parameter is in the coordinate space of the Stage, which may differ from the coordinate space of the display object container (unless the display object container is the Stage). You can use the globalToLocal() and the localToGlobal() methods to convert points between thes