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theButton._name

Description

The string _name property indicates theButton's instance name, which is specified via the Property inspector at authoring time. Though rarely (if ever) necessary, setting _name reassigns the instance name for theButton; thereafter, references to the old instance name yield undefined.

More commonly, the _name property is read, not written. For example, it can be used to identify a specific button when one of many is clicked. The following function performs different actions based on the calling button:

function doAction () {
  if (this._name =  = "ok_btn") {
    doConfirm();
  } else if (this._name =  = "cancel_btn") {
    doCancel();
  }
}
   
// Assign button handlers
ok_btn.onRelease = doAction;
cancel_btn.onRelease = doAction;

Or, if we're looking for a single button in a group of unknown buttons, we can use a for-in loop to hunt for the button's instance name:

// Access all properties of someClip
for (var p in someClip) {
  // If it's a Button object...
  if (someClip[p] instanceof Button) {
    // ...show its name:
    trace("Found " + someClip[p]._name);
   
    // Look for edit_btn
    if (someClip[p]._name =  = "edit_btn") {
      // Disable the edit button.
      someClip[p].enabled = false;
    }
  }
}

See Also

Button.onRelease( ), "The for-in Loop," in Chapter 8

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