Attaching and retrieveing data with instance names?

By estberg | May 13, 2009

Hi,

My first post here at ActionScript.org! I’m quite new to AS3 so please bare with me

I’m developing an AS3 module where the user interacts with certain hardware. One part is highlighting the hardware’s features when the user hovers certain points on it. There’s quite a lot of work to be done here (about 6 modules with about 30 highlights each) so I figured I would make it as changeable as possible.

On the stage I’ve placed all instances of a movieclip that acts as the pointer for the highlights. This movieclip uses a class that animates it upon mouseover/mouseout (hence only two animation functions are required for them all). At the same time I want to display a unique text for every point, and this is where the trouble comes in.
I figured I could attach data with each instance to the class somehow, and then create a new text field upon accessing the class. This is what I came up with:

Code:

// Features

f1.name = "Växla mellan användnings- och viloläge.";

f2.name = "Display.";

f3.name = "Visa den elektroniska programguiden.";

f4.name = "Visa huvudmenyn.";

f5.name = "Lämna menyn.";

f6.name = "Infraröd sensor (för fjärrkontroll).";

f7.name = "Inspelningsindikator - lyser när inspelning pågår.";

f8.name = "Spela in.";

f9.name = "USB-anslutning för externt minne.";

f10.name = "Kortläsare till ditt programkort."

As you can see I tried using the instance property name to attach the data, it failed though (I didn’t get a compile error for this but I couldn’t retrieve the data in the class).
How would you approach this? Do I have to create a variable for each instance’s data, then match them (same number etc.)? Or is there a simpler way?

Thanks,
-Staffan