ActionScript: The Definitive Guide

Name

MovieClip.getBounds( ) Method — determine the bounding box of a clip or movie

Availability

Flash 5

Synopsis

mc.getBounds(targetCoordinateSpace)

Arguments

targetCoordinateSpace

A string indicating the path to the movie or clip in which space mc’s dimensions are measured. Because a movie clip reference is converted to a path when used in a string context, targetCoordinateSpace may also be a movie clip object reference, as in mc.getBounds(_root) versus mc.getBounds("_root"). Defaults to mc if not specified.

Returns

An object whose properties—xMin, xMax, yMin, yMax—describe the bounding box of the space occupied by mc. These four properties of the object respectfully specify the leftmost, rightmost, topmost, and bottommost pixel coordinates of mc.

Description

The getBounds( ) method returns an anonymous object with properties that define the rectangular area occupied by mc (i.e., mc ’s bounding box). To retrieve the values stored in the returned object, we must access that object’s properties as shown in the next example.

The dimensions of the bounding box of a clip may be measured relative to any other clip or movie. Using the targetCoordinateSpace argument, we may pose the question, “If mc resided on targetCoordinateSpace’s canvas, what area would it occupy?” The answer will be different depending on whether targetCoordinateSpace is a main movie or a clip instance; the origin point of the main movie’s coordinate space is the top-left corner of the Stage, but the origin point of an instance’s ...