Flash 8 Cookbook

19.7. Displaying Data with Components

Problem

You want to display data in a component when it is loaded from XML, a web service, or Flash Remoting, and you don’t want to have to write any ActionScript.

Solution

Use data binding.

Discussion

Frequently an XMLConnector, WebServiceConnector, or RemotingConnector call returns data that you want to display to the user. You can certainly use ActionScript to accomplish that task. However, given that the primary purpose of the components is to keep you from having to write ActionScript to work with data, it would seemingly defeat the purpose to have to write ActionScript to display the data. Instead you can use a feature called data binding.

Data binding associates a field from the component schema with a component. For example, if a web service call returns a string, you can associate the return value with a text area component and Flash will automatically display the value in the component as soon as it is returned.

To work with data binding, use the Bindings tab from the Component Inspector panel. In the upper-left corner of the Bindings tab, you’ll see two buttons: Add binding and Delete binding. Click the Add binding button to add a new association, by opening the Add Binding dialogbox. The dialogbox displays the component schema. It’s important that you’ve defined the correct schema before you add a binding. From the dialog box, select the field from the schema that you want to associate with a component. When you click OK, the dialogbox ...