Flash Tutorial: Automatic Focus in a Flash Form	Home • Food • Mates • Members • Tutorials • Forum • Buy Templates • Contact Us

Flash Tutorial - Automatic Focus in a Flash Form

Free Tutorial

Step One: Create the Input Box

1. Open a new Flash Movie.
2. Select the Text tool and drag a text box on stage.

Note: If you have dragged the text tool you should get a paragraph text box which has a square in the top right hand corner:




3. Open the Property Inspector: Window > Properties (Ctrl F3)
   
4. With your Text Box still highlighted select: Input Text (from the drop down menu):
   
   
   
5. Select the font, font style, size and colour.
   
6. Select: Left Justify.
   
7. If your Property Inspector is in collapsed view, click on the down arrow in the bottom right corner of the Property Inspector to expand the panel. If you have an up arrow your panel is already expanded: Expand Property Inspector
8. In the Property Inspector give your Text Box the Instance Name:   /:Text1
9. In the Property Inspector give your Text Box the Var Name:   /:Text1
   
   
   Text Box Properties.
   
   
   
10. Create a new: Text Box

Note: The easiest way is to copy and paste the existing Text box.

11. Give this new Text Box the Instance Name and Var Name:   /:Text2
12. Create a third Text box with the Instance Name and Var Name:   /:Text3
    
    
    My Three Input Boxes.
    
    
    
13. Add 3 static lines of text next to each of the above Text Boxes: Input 1:   Input 2:   Input 3:
    
    
    My Three input Text Boxes now have labels: Input 1 to 3.
    
    
14. Place a button Off Stage: Button

Note: This button is there so that we can attach some ActionScript to it. It is not designed to be seen (or clicked!!). For this reason you can use any standard button that you may find in the Button Library: Window > Other Panels > Common Libraries > Buttons

Do not use Knobs, Faders or Component buttons as they have different ActionScript.


15. Add this code to your button:

on (keyPress "<Tab>"){
    if (_root.a == 0) {
        Selection.setFocus("_root.Text1");
        Selection.setSelection(length(/:Text1), length(/:Text1));
        _root.a = 1;
    }else if (_root.a == 1) {
        Selection.setFocus("_root.Text2");
        Selection.setSelection(length(/:Text2), length(/:Text2));
        _root.a = 2;
    }else if (_root.a == 2) {
        Selection.setFocus("_root.Text3");
        Selection.setSelection(length(/:Text3), length(/:Text3));
        _root.a = 0;
    }
}


16. Add a new layer and call it ActionScript
17. Add this code to the first frame of the ActionScript:

var a = 0;