Question

A previous question has gotten me thinking. Is it possible to simulate a MouseEvent.CLICK to get fired by just firing first a MOUSE_DOWN followed by a MOUSE_UP.

As per Adobe’s doumentation.
“… For a click event to occur, it must always follow this series of events in the order of occurrence: mouseDown event, then mouseUp. The target object must be identical for both of these events; otherwise the click event does not occur. Any number of other mouse events can occur at any time between the mouseDown or mouseUp events; the click event still occurs.” http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/display/InteractiveObject.html#event:click

From my tests it shows that the CLICK event is NOT constructed from the ActionScript 3 event queue. Or is something wrong with the code?

See:

package
{
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;

[SWF(backgroundColor="0xFFFFFF", frameRate="30", width="800", height="600")]

public class Test extends Sprite
{
    private var spr:Sprite = new Sprite();
    public function Test()
    {
        trace("Test()");
        this.addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE,init);
    }
    public function init(e:Event):void
    {
        trace("init()");
        spr.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);
        spr.graphics.drawRect(0,0,200,80);
        spr.graphics.endFill();
        addChild(spr);
        addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onEnterFrame);
        spr.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onClick);
    }
    private var tick:int = 0;
    private function onEnterFrame(e:Event):void
    {
        if (tick == 1) spr.dispatchEvent(new MouseEvent(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,true,false));
        if (tick == 2) spr.dispatchEvent(new MouseEvent(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP,true,false));
        if (tick == 3) spr.dispatchEvent(new MouseEvent(MouseEvent.CLICK,true,false));
        tick++;
    }
    private function onClick(e:MouseEvent):void
    {
        trace("onClick() MouseEvent.CLICK dispatched"); 
    }
}
}

I should get TWO ‘onClick()’ events instead of one.

Answer 1

The reason you cannot is that all three types are created by the plugin, and are not dependent upon each other.

MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN is fired as soon as you press on an interactive object.
MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP is fired as soon as you release the mouse, it does not depend upon the mouse click having started a MOUSE_DOWN within the same InteractiveObject.
MouseEvent.CLICK will only be fired when both events take place in the same object without the cursor leaving the object between the itnerval of mouse down and mouse up.

So you can see that there is a simple case, or two even, in which both MOUSE_DOWN and MOUSE_UP are fired, but CLICK is not called because the event is not a CLICK.

Furthermore, the ability to simply dispatch a MouseEvent.CLICK event makes it unnecesasry to create fake user interaction by firing multiple mouse events, when only one is called for. It would be awkward to have to track each object clicked in the mouse down listener, in order to check that the moue up should also trigger a click. You would also need to remove references when a ROLL_OUT event happened.

In short, the CLICK event is really a lot more than the MOUSE_DOWN and MOUSE_UP events. It is also managing that the events happened in succession and on the same display object without leaving the object. When that happens, and ONLY when that happens flash dispatches a CLICK event.