iGeeks

October 26th, 2003

Instance Name extensions

Found this long back, would be good to keep it here for archive sake.

MovieClip: name_mc
Array: name_array
String: name_str
Button: name_btn
TextField: name_txt
TextFormat: name_fmt
Date: name_date
Sound: name_sound
XML: name_xml
XMLSocket: name_xmlsocket
XMLNode: name_xmlnode
Color: name_color
Video: name_video
Camera: name_cam
Microphone: name_mic
MovieClipLoader: name_mcl
Error: name_err
LoadVars: name_lv
ContextMenu: name_cm
ContextMenuItem: name_cmi
Printjob : name_pj
NetConnection: name_nc
LocalConnection: name_lc
NetStream: name_ns
SharedObject: name_so
FTextfield: name_txf
FDatagrid: name_dg
FTabbed: name_tbv
FSlider: name_sld
FTree: name_tree
FTreeNode: name_tn
FIconButton: name_ib
FProgressBar: name_pr
FBarChart: name_bc
FLineChart: name_lc
FTPieChart: name_pc
FAdvancedCalendar:name_acal
FSimpleMenu: name_sm
FColorPicker: name_cp
FSmartComboBox: name_scb
FRichTextEditor: name_rte
FWeekView: name_wkv
FAccordionpane: name_acp
FCheckBox: name_ch
FPushButton: name_pb
FRadioButton: name_rb
FListBox: name_lb
FScrollBar: name_sb
FComboBox: name_cb
FMessageBox: name_mb
FDraggablePane: name_dp
FScrollPane: name_sp

If you are using this for code hinting, there is another method to do so, declare the code hinting pattern in comment styles notations such as
//MovieClip myClip;
But in Flash MX 2004, most of these extensions no longer work by default. The new version 2 components use a different approach to code hinting. In Flash MX 2004, for instance, by specifying the data type, typing the following brings up the code hint dialog box for ComboBox:

var combo:mx.controls.ComboBox;
combo.

You can check out the default name extensions by opening the following file in a text editor
Flash installation folder\en\First Run\ActionsPanel\AsCodeHints.xml

You want to use the Flash MX’s code hints in Flash MX 2004

Open and copy the “codehints” section from the end of Flash MX’s UIComponents.xml, located at
Flash MX installation folder\en\First Run\ActionsPanel\CustomActions\UIComponents.xml

<p> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> </p>

Paste it just before the ending tag of Flash MX 2004’s UIComponents.xml.
Paste the same block in Flash MX 2004’s AsCodeHints.xml after removing the “codehints” tags. This lets you use Flash MX version 1 component code hints in Flash MX 2004. Another method to bind variable names to built-in data types is to use the comment-style notation that we used for Flash MX.

Brajeshwar