Chapter 3: Using Components with Custom User Interfaces

Overview

In the previous chapters, you got a glimpse of how easy components can be to use. However, you also saw that a few things can cause problems when using components-particularly with the default Component Parameters user interface.

While the default Component Parameters UI is perfectly functional, it is not very user- friendly. The default UI looks somewhat similar to a database application, which can be intimidating to some people. Also, as I pointed out in the last chapter, the default UI's values can be confusing, and there is no way to keep users from entering values for some parameters that may not work properly with the component.

Fortunately, Macromedia provides a means for component designers to design a more intuitive user interface for editing component parameters. In this chapter, we'll look at several examples of components that utilize custom interfaces for their parameters. I will discuss the advantages of custom interfaces as well as the few things that you need to watch out for when using components with custom interfaces. You will also experience, first hand, the advantages that custom UIs provide over the default UI for editing parameters.

• Understanding custom UIs

• Good and bad characteristics of UIs

• Working with custom UIs