Flash CS3 Documentation

Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Adobe Flash > Working with Text and Strings > About text fields > Assigning text to a text field at runtime

Assigning text to a text field at runtime

When you build applications with Flash, you may want to load text from an external source, such as a text file, an XML file, or even a remote web service. Flash provides a great deal of control over how you create and display text on the Stage, such as supporting text that is HTML formatted, plain text, XML formatted text, and external style sheets. Or you can use ActionScript to define a stylesheet.

To assign text to a text field, you can do one of the following: use the text or htmlTEXT properties; create a variable name for the text field in the Var: field in the Properties inspector and assign text to that; assign a value by binding the text field to a text field in another component.

The following exercise assigns text to a text field at runtime.

To assign text to a text field at runtime:

1. Using the Text tool, create a text field on the Stage.
2. With the text field selected, in the Property inspector (Window > Properties > Properties), select Input Text from the Text Type pop-up menu, and enter headline_txt in the Instance Name text box.

   Instance names must consist only of letters, numbers, underscores (_), and dollar signs ($).

3. Select Frame 1 of the Timeline, and open the Actions panel (Window > Actions).
4. Type the following code in the Actions panel:

   headline_txt.text = "New articles available on Developer Center";
   

5. Select Control > Test Movie to test the Flash document.

You can also create a text field with ActionScript, and then assign text to it. Type the following ActionScript on Frame 1 of the Timeline:

this.createTextField("headline_txt", this.getNextHighestDepth(), 100, 100, 300, 20);
headline_txt.text = "New articles available on Developer Center";

This code creates a new text field with the instance name headline_txt. The text field is created at the next highest depth, at the x and y coordinates of 100, 100, with a text field width of 200 pixels and a height of 20 pixels. When you test the SWF file (Control > Test Movie), the text "New articles available on Developer Center" appears on the Stage.

To create an HTML-formatted text field:

Use one of the following two steps to enable HTML formatting for the text field:

• Select a text field and click the Render Text as HTML button in the Property inspector.
• Set the text field's html property to true by using ActionScript (see the following code sample).

To apply HTML formatting to a text field by using ActionScript, type the following ActionScript on Frame 1 of the Timeline:

this.createTextField("headline_txt", this.getNextHighestDepth(), 100, 100, 300, 20);
headline_txt.html = true;
headline_txt.htmlText = "New articles available on <i>Developer Center</i>.";

The preceding code dynamically creates a new text field, enables HTML formatting, and displays the text "New articles available on Developer Center" on the Stage, with the word "Developer Center" appearing in italics.

For samples that demonstrate how to work with text fields using ActionScript, see the Flash Samples page at www.adobe.com/go/learn_fl_samples. Download the Samples zip file and navigate to the ActionScript 2.0/TextFields folder to access these samples:

• textfieldsA.fla
• textfieldsB.fla

Flash CS3