Advanced Flash Components

Integrating 2D Carousel With Components: Tooltip

Updated: Dec 10, 2007 Views: 933

Description: This tutorial will show you how integrate the 2D Carousel with the Tooltip Component so that the Tooltip shows an carousel item's description from the XML document as they are rolled over.

Components Used in this Tutorial: 2D Carousel AS3.0 and Tooltip AS3.0

The Completed Project:

Complete Code:

import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import com.afcomponents.events.CarouselEvent;

myTooltip.autoShow = false;

//After XML Loads add events for All Items in Carousel
function loadComplete(event:Event){
    myCarousel.addGenericItemEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, showTooltip);
    myCarousel.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT, hideTooltip);
}
myCarousel.addEventListener(CarouselEvent.XML_LOAD_COMPLETE, loadComplete);

//Shows the Tooltip
function showTooltip(event:MouseEvent){
    myTooltip.show();
    myTooltip.content = event.target.description;
}

//Hides the Tooltip
function hideTooltip(event:MouseEvent){
    myTooltip.hide();
}

Set-Up and Add Content Using through XML

Before you begin make sure that you have successfully installed the component inspector have been able to load content into the Carousel component using XML. Also make sure that you give your Carousel an instance name of myCarousel.

Setting up Tooltip

After you have the Tooltip component installed, drag an instance of the Tooltip onto the stage from the components panel (Window > Components). Make sure that you give your Tooltip an instance name of myTooltip.

Plan for ActionScript

Now, we just need to write a little ActionScript to connect the Tooltip to the items in the Carousel. We will add the ActionScript in the frame in actions layer in the time.

First, we need to add event listeners to the Carousel to know when the user rolls the mouse over and off an item in the Carousel.
The roll over event listener will call a function that shows and updates the text in the Tooltip.
The roll out event listener calls a function that hides the Tooltip.
Lastly, we need to set the initial state of the Tooltip to hidden.

Add Roll Over and Roll Out Event Listeners

Event listeners for items in the Carousel can only be loaded through ActionScript after the component has initialized. We do this by creating an event listener and calling a function in which we will use to add our content.

import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import com.afcomponents.events.CarouselEvent;

function onCarouselInit(event:CarouselEvent) {
myCarousel.addGenericItemEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, showTooltip);
myCarousel.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT, hideTooltip);
}
myCarousel.addEventListener(CarouselEvent.INITIALIZE, onCarouselInit);

Roll Over Function

Next, we add the function that roll over event listener calls, which shows our Tooltip and updates the text to our target’s description in the XML document:

//Shows the Tooltip
function showTooltip(event:MouseEvent){
myTooltip.show();
myTooltip.content = event.target.description;
}

Roll Out Function

Now, we just need to write the function that our roll out event listener calls, which hides our Tooltip.

//Hides the Tooltip
function hideTooltip(event:MouseEvent){
myTooltip.hide();
}

Hide the Tooltip Initially

Lastly we just need to set a property of the Tooltip so that it hides initially:

myTooltip.autoShow = false;

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