Advanced Flash Components

Integrating Stack With Components: Tooltip

Updated: Jan 16, 2008 Views: 1411

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

Components Used in this Tutorial: Stack AS3.0 and Tooltip AS3.0

The Completed Project:

Complete Code:

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

myTooltip.autoShow = false;

// Wait for items to load from XML and then add MouseEvent.CLICK to each item
// NOTE: Before this, items do not exist
function contentLoad (event:Event) {
    for (var i:Number = 0; i<=myStack.length-1; i++) {
        myStack.addItemEventListener (i, MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, itemOver);
        myStack.addItemEventListener (i, MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT, itemOut);
    }
}
myStack.addEventListener(StackEvent.CONTENT_LOAD_START, contentLoad);

// Handle item over
function itemOver(event:MouseEvent) {
    myTooltip.content = event.target.description;
    myTooltip.show();
}

// Handle item out
function itemOut(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 Stack component using XML. Also make sure that you give your Stack an instance name of myStack.

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 Stack. We will add the ActionScript in the frame in actions layer in the time.

First, we need to add event listeners to the Stack to know when the user rolls the mouse over and off an item in the Stack.
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 Stack 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 loop through the items in our stack and add mouse click event listeners to our content.

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:

// Handle item over
function itemOver(event:MouseEvent) {
myTooltip.content = event.target.description;
myTooltip.show();
}

Roll Out Function

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

// Handle item out
function itemOut(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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