Flash 8 Cookbook

9.10. Using a Dial Control

Problem

You want to use a dial control.

Solution

Use an instance of the RightActionScript Dial component.

Discussion

Like slider controls, dial controls are a moderately common element in Flash applications. You can use dials to control audio settings (volume, pan, and so on), mimic analog devices (such as radios), and much more. However, as with slider controls, Flash has no (practical) built-in dial controls. That means that you either have to make your own dial control or use a third-party component. In this recipe, I’ll discuss how to use the RightActionScript Dial component.

Adding a dial is as simple as dragging an instance from the Components panel to the stage of a Flash document. When you test the movie, you’ll notice that the dial automatically responds to mouse events. As you mouse over it, the dial highlights. As you click on the dial, it visually changes to the down state, and you can drag the mouse to move the dial.

As with the slider control, you can retrieve the value from a dial as a percent or in a range. The default range is from 0 to 100, so unless you change the range, the percent and value are equal. However, you can set the range in the Component Inspector panel with the minimum and maximum parameters. For example, if you want to use the dial to control the red element of a color, you might want to change the range from 0 to 255. You can retrieve the percent (always from 0 to 100) using the percent property. You can retrieve the value using ...