Extending button class

Question

Hello all,
I am trying to extend the button class to include the ability
to click the button when a user presses the enter key on the
keyboard. I do not know how I would go about doing this. There are
two private functions that control the press and release of the
button; buttonPressed() and buttonReleased(), along with a private
property ButtonPhase that seem to control this functionality. At
first I thought I would override the keyDownHandler and the
keyUpHandler, as they allow the user to click the button with the
space bar, but it won't work with the private functions and
property. Any ideas on how I could achieve this goal without having
to copy and alter the original button class would be greatly
appreciated. Does anybody know why the developers chose to have the
button click when the space is hit instead of the enter key? It
seems to me that the enter key is a much more intuitive keyboard
shortcut than the space bar.
Thanks for your help

Answer 1

I recently had the same problem extend the Button class and
override the two methods as follows
override protected function
keyDownHandler(event:KeyboardEvent):void
super.keyDownHandler(event);
if (event.keyCode == Keyboard.ENTER)
this.dispatchEvent(new MouseEvent(MouseEvent.CLICK));
override protected function
keyUpHandler(event:KeyboardEvent):void
super.keyUpHandler(event);
if (event.keyCode == Keyboard.ENTER)
this.dispatchEvent(new MouseEvent(MouseEvent.MOUSE_UP));
}