Event Handler not Working

Question

Salutations!
My College teacher was telling me about flash builder and how good it is for mobile applications. I've never done anything with actionscript before and had my first foray into such a few days ago. However I quickly ran into a problem. I've drawn a rectangle and are now wanting to try and use event handlers. For now I was wanting to say add the event handler for clicking on the rectangle. When done so then run a specifed function.
rectangle.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, RectClicked);
But even though there is nothing wrong anywhere in my application upon clicking the first rectangle, nothing happens. This is true for other mouse and keyboard events. My teacher said it may have something to do with having the student flash builder at College and currently having the trial here at home. It may not allow you to use certain functions.
Do I have to purchase flash builder first before being able to use certain functionality?

Answer 1

Ah... with all due respect, I think your teacher is wrong. To disable event handling would be somewhat traumatic for Flash which uses event handling as the core of its functionality. In any case, I am not aware of any functions being disabled on a trial version.
It is far more likey to be a coding error on your part, sorry. There are a number of possibilities:
1. You may have drawn a rectangle as a primitive (eg <s:Rect />) or as a Shape - both of which are IEventDispatcher but neither of which dispatch mouse events.
2. You may have added the listener at the wrong point in the timeline so that the listener isn't there when you click.
3. Some other, unspecified coding error...
I imagine the first possibility is the most likely.
Here is a simple pure actionscript clicker:
[code]
package
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
public class Clicker extends Sprite
  public function Clicker()
   var s:Sprite = new Sprite();
   s.graphics.beginFill(0xff,1);
   s.graphics.drawRect(0,0,50,50);
   s.x = s.y = 50;
   addChild(s);
   s.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,rectClicked);
  protected function rectClicked(event:MouseEvent):void {
   trace("Rectangle was clicked.");
[/code]
And here is the same in Flex:
[code]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009"
      xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark"
      xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/mx" minWidth="955" minHeight="600">
<fx:Script>
  <![CDATA[
   import mx.graphics.SolidColor;
   protected function group1_clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
    trace("Rectangle was clicked.");
  ]]>
</fx:Script>
<fx:Declarations>
  <!-- Place non-visual elements (e.g., services, value objects) here -->
</fx:Declarations>
<s:Group x="50" y="50" click="group1_clickHandler(event)">
  <s:Rect width="50" height="50" fill="{new SolidColor(0xff,1)}" />
</s:Group>
</s:Application>
[/code]
G