A Memopad, using the new MX Shared Object - Page 6

The Actionscript: The Radio buttons

We now have to create the tools for the interaction with the user. We could use ordinary buttons for each weekday but Flash MX has components, which can work like buttons and are kind of fancier. We will use radio buttons. We put 7 radio buttons on the stage each one into a different frame. I like to put each object into a different frame except for buttons and their text. Then I know where to find them. We click on each button and give it a name conveniently here we call them radioMonday and so on. When you click on a radio button you see a description in the property inspector. First of all all radio buttons, which you have put on the stage belong to the same group. This is a particular feature of radio buttons compared to checkboxes for example. Use of radio buttons allows only one choice whereas checkboxes allow several choices. If you want to to use radio buttons like checkboxes you have to give every button a different group name. This will unlock their relation to each other. However in our case we don´t want that.

Now let´s get back to the script. We first label all the buttons, which consequently results in a description next to the button. We can actually choose where to put this description (property inspector). We want it to the right of the button. We use the setLabel command to do that and in brackets we write what we want the label to be (for example "Monday"). We do that now for all buttons.

    //Here we set the label for the radio buttons to the individual days. 
    _root.radioMonday.setLabel("Monday");
    _root.radioTuesday.setLabel("Tuesday");
    _root.radioWednesday.setLabel("Wednesday");
    _root.radioThursday.setLabel("Thursday");
    _root.radioFriday.setLabel("Friday");
    _root.radioSaturday.setLabel("Saturday");
    _root.radioSunday.setLabel("Sunday");

Next we have to attach a function to the radioGroup (which we named as by default radioGroup). This function is a changeHandler and makes sure that when we select a different button the corresponding action will be done, in our case changing the textfield for another weekday. And that´s it. Now we have to define the function.

    //change handler for the radio buttons is the function "onChange".
    radioGroup.setChangeHandler("onChange");