Refer to text field by class instance name

I need to populate the text field tField开发者_StackOverflow社区 (defined on stage) that resides inside ParentClass (MovieClip with same class name). I want to be able to set tField.text to whatever I want from AnotherClass. How do I do it?

Use getChildByName. First you create the TextField in a class.

import flash.display.TextField;

var tField:TextField = new TextField();
tField.name = "tField";

stage.addChild(tField);

Note that you need to set the name. In another class, you can use:

var tField:TextField = stage.getChildByName("tField");
trace(tField.name); // tField

Changed answer to full instructions because the asker is probably missing a key step through the Flash GUI.

1. Open Adobe Flash CS5 (might work for CS4 too.)
2. File, New, Actionscript 3.0.
3. Click the text tool. Draw a TextField.
4. Click the TextField, in the Properties window select Input Text in the drop down.
5. With the TextField still selected, in the Properties window, set the Instance Name to "tField" no quotes.
6. Click on the stage. In the Properties window set the Class: text field to "Main" no quotes.
7. File, Save As, "Test.fla" no quotes.
8. File, New, Actionscript 3.0 class.

9. Paste the following in to the new AS file:

   package {

   import flash.display.MovieClip;
   import flash.events.FullScreenEvent;
   import flash.events.MouseEvent;
   import flash.events.Event;
   
   public class Main extends MovieClip 
   {
       public function Main()
       {
           var another:Another = new Another(this.tField);
       }
   }
   

   }

10. File, Save As, "Main.as" no quotes, IN THE SAME DIRECTORY AS STEP 3.

11. File, New, Actionscript 3.0 class.

12. Paste the following code into the new .as file (I can't get StackOverflow to display this correctly. Just paste it as is):

    package { import flash.text.TextField; public class Another { public function Another(textField:TextField) { textField.text = "Hello"; } } }

13. File, Save As, "Another.as" no quotes, in the SAME DIRECTORY AS STEP 3.

14. Hit Ctrl-Enter.

All drawing a TextField on the stage and setting its instance name does is secretly add the lines of code:

public var tField:TextField = new TextField();
tField.type = "input";

To whatever class the stage is associated with (in this case, the class Main.) If you need any more help than that, I would recommend getting a good book on AS3 programming and the Flash IDE because the answer is well beyond the scope of a simple StackOverflow answer.