ActionScript: The Definitive Guide

User-Input Text Fields

User-input text fields differ from dynamic text fields only in that they may be edited by the user while the movie is playing. That is, a user can type into a user-input text field to change its value. ActionScript can then retrieve and manipulate the user-entered value. User-input text fields are useful for guest books, order forms, password-entry fields, or anywhere you request information from the user.

Creating a User-Input Text Field

To create a user-input text field, follow the same steps described earlier under Section 18.1.1, but choose Input Text instead of Dynamic Text from the Text Type menu.

Changing the Content of an Input Text Field

Like dynamic text fields, user-input text fields may be changed at any time simply by setting the value of the named text field with an assignment statement:

myInputText = "Type your name here";

Because user-input text fields are normally used to accept data rather than display data, we don’t usually set their contents except to provide a default value for the user’s input.

Retrieving and Using the Value of an Input Text Field

You can retrieve the value of a text field by simply referring to it by name in a script. For example, to display the value of an input text field called myInput, use:

trace(myInput);

Because data entered by the user into a user-input text field is always a string datatype, we should convert it explicitly before using it in a non-string context, as demonstrated in this simple calculator example that totals ...