Question

I would like to replace the little handcursor that appears when hovering over movieclips with buttonMode=true by a custom graphic.

Is there any way to do this globally for my whole application or do I have to go to every single button, add MOUSE_OVER, MOUSE_OUT and MOUSE_MOVE handlers which will hide and show the mouse cursor as well place the handgraphics over it and position it correctly?

seems tedious…

Answer 1

You could write a single set of MOUSE_OVER, MOUSE_MOVE and MOUSE_OUT handlers that do the replacement and positioning as you described but then add listeners to all your buttons that point to these handlers. Remember, the same handlers can be used for multiple objects.

Or alternatively, assuming your ‘buttons’ are MovieClips, you could write a custom ActionScript class that extends MovieClip, defines this default functionality and then have all your button instances use this class as a base. See below:

    public class ButtonMovieClip extends MovieClip {

        public function ButtonMovieClip() {
            addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER, buttonOver);
            addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT, buttonOut);
            addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, buttonMove);
        }

        public function buttonOver(event:MouseEvent) {
            //Hide mouse and add replacement graphic
        }

        public function buttonOut(event:MouseEvent) {
            //Show mouse and remove graphic
        }

        public function buttonMove(event:MouseEvent) {
            //Position graphic where mouse should be
        }
    }

The key then is to ensure all your buttons are created from this class (either by code or from within the Flash IDE).