Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 Bible

Chapter 22. Converting Artwork to Components in Your Projects

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Convert layers to custom components

• Nesting components

• Convert artwork to a button

• Create check boxes and radio buttons

• Convert artwork to a text input field

• Convert artwork to a scroll bar

Flex applications are constructed as a collection of components. Each component fulfills a specific function, be it displaying a particular aspect of the visual interface of the application or performing some specific programming task.

You can use Catalyst to convert your primary interface elements into components.

Creating Custom Components

Catalyst includes the ability to convert artwork into one of 11 common Flex user interface components. They are:

• Button

• Checkbox

• Radio Button

• Toggle Button

• Text Input

• Horizontal Slider

• Vertical Slider

• Scroll Panel

• Horizontal Scrollbar

• Vertical Scrollbar

• Data List

While those provide important building blocks for your application, most of your assets will in fact end up becoming custom components. Any element, or more often, any group of elements, that does not fit into one of the 11 existing component types will become a custom component.

More frequently, you will simply want to convert any group of related assets as a component. For example, the collection of elements that is designed to make up a view state should be converted to a custom component.

Convert artwork to a custom component

You can create a custom component by selecting the assets you want to convert, then use the heads-up display (HUD) to ...