Simpliest ancestor for a clickable, hand-drawn component?

Question

I am creating a component that will be a large plus or a large minus. I don't want to use a bitmap because even I can draw this using the Graphics class, but the component must be clickable (the Shape class is not).

It will be part of an item renderer, so I want it to be as light-weight as possible. UIComponent does not seem to sent CLICK messages.

Thanks for any ideas

I don't recommend you to hand-draw the component, it may damage your screen. — Camilo Martin, Nov 07 '10 at 23:37

Jeremy White · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-23T01:26:56.723

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I would suggest creating a Sprite object and drawing the minus and plus arrows to its graphics object. You'll then have to addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, someFunction); in its constructor or wherever else you'll need it.

You may also want to set cacheAsBitmap to true at that point, so that it's not redrawn every frame.

EDIT: Per @jeremynealbrown you have to use the SpriteAsset class if you are working in Flex, apparently. Very similar, but another 2 levels of abstraction are added.

edited Jan 23 '10 at 01:26

answered Jan 23 '10 at 00:24

Jeremy White

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Sprite is the highest class that you can access both the graphics object and the MouseEvent.CLICK event. – Jeremy White Jan 23 '10 at 00:25
A Sprite is essentially the same thing as a MovieClip, but without the timeline. A Sprite is higher in the heirarchy than a MovieClip, so it will be more lightweight. – Jeremy White Jan 23 '10 at 00:37
I guess it's how you look at it, higher-lower – Tyler Egeto Jan 23 '10 at 00:43
True, I generally look at the base class as being at the top and everything else comes down from it. Not sure why... – Jeremy White Jan 23 '10 at 00:47
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Neither will work with the Flex framework, you will need to use SpriteAsset or MovieClipAsset. – JeremyFromEarth Jan 23 '10 at 01:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 23 '10 at 00:13

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If you look here: UIComponent Docs

You will see that UIComponent has InteractiveObject in its inheritance path. InteractiveObject is the class that adds mouse event functionality.

answered Jan 23 '10 at 00:13

sberry

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 23 '10 at 00:40

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UIComponent will actually dispatch click events. However, if there is no content drawn to the graphics, the UIComponent will have no area that can be clicked. If the plus or minus icon you draw is too small to reliably catch mouse activities, then draw a fully-transparent rectangle to increase the hit area.

answered Jan 23 '10 at 00:40

Josh Tynjala

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Exactly what I was going to reply :) – Sophistifunk Jan 25 '10 at 01:15

Simpliest ancestor for a clickable, hand-drawn component?

3 Answers3