ActionScript: The Definitive Guide

Name

MovieClip._ width Property — width of a clip or movie, in pixels

Availability

Flash 4; enhanced in Flash 5

Synopsis

mc._width

Access

Read-only in Flash 4; read/write in Flash 5

Description

The floating-point _width property stores a non-negative number specifying the current width of mc, in pixels. If mc has no content, _width is 0. The _width property measures the content of a clip or movie as the distance between the leftmost occupied pixel and the rightmost occupied pixel, even if there is empty space between those pixels. An occupied pixel is a pixel that contains a shape, graphic, button, movie clip, or other content element. Changes made to a clip’s width in the authoring tool or via _xscale are reflected by _width.

We may set the value of _width in order to horizontally resize a movie clip. Attempts to set _width to a negative value are ignored. Setting a clip’s _width to does not hide the clip, it turns it into a one-pixel vertical line.

The _width of the main movie (either _root._width or _level n ._width) is not the Stage width as specified under Modify → Movie → Dimensions in the authoring tool but rather the width of the contents of the main movie. There is no explicit Stage width property; if required, we must provide the Stage width manually as a variable. For example, if a movie’s Stage has a width of 550, we could add the following variable:

_root.stageWidth = 550;

To make that value available on the timeline of any clip, use:

Object.prototype.stageWidth = 550;

Usage

Note ...