is there a way to emulate the selection tool?

[iostream71]

i was wondering how i could duplicate the selection tool in flash. i want to click a tool button, then drag a square shape on my 'stage'. anybody done this before?

 

[billwatson]

create your tool button

then on release, attachmovie , which is your square with a drag option set to true.

 

[wangbar]

I don't know about actually doing proper 'selection' (although doing a hit test between the outline you draw and any other objects on stage would be a partial solution) but this code will do the outline drawing for you:

//set up event handlers
this.onMouseDown = startBox;
this.onMouseUp = endBox;

function startBox() {
//set box start point at mouse location
var startX = _xmouse;
var startY = _ymouse;
//create selection box (attach from library)
this.attachMovie('selectionBox', 'box', 100, {_x:startX, _y:startY});
this.onEnterFrame = function() {
//do dragging effect
box._xscale = _xmouse-startX;
box._yscale = _ymouse-startY;
};
}

function endBox() {
//'freeze' selection outline
this.onEnterFrame = null;
}

You'll need to have a movieclip in the library with its linkage property set to 'selectionBox' which must be a square sized 100 pixels to a side so that the code will scale the outline properly.

Alternatively you could use virtually the same code to draw lines using the new drawing functions in MX.

 

[iostream71]

i had come up with a solution similar to yours. one problem i have, is that it scales out from the center. i was trying to make it scale downward, just like the selection tool

basically, what i'm trying to do is:
click the tool
drag a square shape on the stage
display info in the shape while it's being drawn

 

[BooYaKaSha]

What if, inside the movie clip, you align the top left to the registration point instead of the center?