AS3 - Accessing Library Items from outside the Document class

Question

How do you access Library items from classes other than the document class?

For example, if I create a movie clip in Flash and Export it for Actionscript with the name Foo, I can do this in the document class:

var f = new Foo();
this.addChild(f);

And it appears on the stage, as it should. But I need to be able to create other instances of this object from other classes. If I use the same code above in SomeOtherClass.as, I get nothing on the stage, obviously because this class doesn't know about the Foo object in the library.

I know I probably need to use appplicationDomain.getDefinition somehow. This doesn't work:

var a = new ApplicationDomain(ApplicationDomain.currentDomain);
var foo: Class = a.getDefinition ( "com.me.CustomClass" ) ;
var f = new foo( ) ;
addChild ( f ) ;

TypeError: Error #1007: Instantiation attempted on a non-constructor.

Answer 1

I don't ever remember this being a problem. I think (it's been a while!) that you need to write a code class derived from MovieClip or similar and associate with the library item somewhere in its properties. Of course once this is done, you can treat the library classes the same as any other class.

EDIT:

try this:

var foo:Class=loaderInstance.contentLoaderInfo.applicationDomain.getDefinition("MyClass");
var x:*=new foo();

Upon closer reading of your problem, I realize that this is code at the loader side, not the loadee side. Definitely barking up the right tree though.

Answer 2

Try something more like this:

var foo:Class = ApplicationDomain.currentDomain.getDefinition("SymbolName") as Class;

I believe the symbol name should not have a package name at the beginning, for a library symbol.

Answer 3

Looks like an application domain problem. The loaded swf cannot access classes defined in the loader.

You should give the loaded swf access to the loader swf library. Try using LoaderContext.

Off the top of my head:

var loader:Loader = new Loader(); var ctx:LoaderContext = new LoaderContext(false,ApplicationDomain.current); loader.load(yourRequest,ctx);

Answer 4

I wrote a blog entry explaining this very issue. You can see it here: http://mikedaross.tumblr.com/post/255348816/using-external-classes-with-applicationdomain