Love/hate relationship with Flash�s components
Macromedia have brought a lot more depth into Flash by adding pre-compiled components (or movie clips) to the software�s library. Mostly in the professional edition these components make building application faster and easier.
One of the components I�ve played with it the Window object. It�s simple to understand and it�s possible to create one on the fly using ActionScript only. Let me put some emphasis on that. Within a few lines, I was able to program my way into a graphic application. We can all agree that�s the direction Macromedia is taking and to a certain extent they are succeeding in doing so.
However, other components are much harder to instantiate or create/call straight from ActionScript. The documentation on Live Docs is also somewhat deficient. I�ve tried a gazillion times to have the XML connector work when created dynamically but couldn�t make it work yet. The media playback was a bit easier to build with dynamic values, but as I write this, the Mp3 player on The Music Tank still has trouble opening .mp3 files consistently.
What I hate about components is how I never know if it�s my fault if it�s not working. If it is (which is probably the case) there are two questions I can rarely find answers for:
Am I supplying invalid values which failed validation once the control is speaking with my website and
Is the control not working because I instantiated its properties with wrong values?
I hope Flex will make it easier for graphic artists who are able to do real Object-Oriented programming. Right now, I feel pretty dumb having to use illogical code just to make up for Flash’s �almost-there� programming language.