Dynamically size movieclip to fit text's string height and width

Question

Hello,
I am trying to dynamically size a movieclip to fit the size of a text's string height and width (This text is inside the movieclip)
here is my code so far..
var Font1_ = new Font1();
var Format2:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
Format2.size = 36;
Format2.align = TextFormatAlign.CENTER;
Format2.font = Font1_.fontName;
var MessageBox:MovieClip = new MessageBoxMC();
MessageBox.Text1.defaultTextFormat = Format2;
MessageBox.Text1.embedFonts = true;
MessageBox.Text1.antiAliasType = AntiAliasType.ADVANCED;
MessageBox.Text1.wordWrap = true;
MessageBox.Text1.width = 800;
MessageBox.Text1.height = 400;
MessageBox.Text1.textColor = 0xFFFFFF;
MessageBox.Text1.cacheAsBitmap = true;
MessageBox.Text1.mouseEnabled = false;
MessageBox.Text1.text = String("Use the Arrow Buttons to move");
MessageBox.width = MessageBox.Text1.width;
MessageBox.height = MessageBox.Text1.height;
  MessageBox.x = 400;
  MessageBox.y = 200;
  addChild(MessageBox);
this isn't working for me.. anyone know the best way to do this?
I also want the text to be centered in the movieclip, with a border of around 2-4 pixels
I am also not sure if i should be using text.length? any advice and input is greatly welcomed.
thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Essentially, you need to check for a change in .textWidth or .textHeight, which are different from .width and .height.
This code works for me (assumes a background box called bg and a foreground text instance fg inside a moveclip and an X and Y bounds offset variable to say how far away you want the box from the text and a textFrameNudge to provide a tweak value).
     // Resize background box
     thisBox.bg.x = thisBox.fg.x - boundsOffsetX + textFrameNudge; // I'm using .4 as the tweak value for textFrameNudge
     thisBox.bg.y = thisBox.fg.y - boundsOffsetY;
     thisBox.bg.width = thisBox.fg.textWidth + boundsOffsetX*2 +textFrameNudge*thisBox.fg.getTextFormat().size;
     thisBox.bg.height = thisBox.fg.textHeight + boundsOffsetY*2;