Passing variables from a dynamically created textinput in AS2?

Question

Hey everyone,
I have a contact form in my flash file with name/email/message fields which a user can fill out and then click send, which passes these to a php script which then emails the information that they entered. This works fine when the text inputs are manually placed on the stage and all the information is passed to the php script and emailed to me. I am just updating it so the textinputs are created via AS2 so that I can style them more easily etc. This is fine however when created via script they no longer get passed to my php file. I am creating the textinput using the following code (which works fine):
var my_fmt:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
my_fmt.bold = false;
my_fmt.font = "Arial";
my_fmt.color = inputcol;
contact_form.createTextField("contact_name", getNextHighestDepth(),112.6, 27, 174, 20);
contact_form.contact_name.wordWrap = true;
contact_form.contact_name.multiline = false;
contact_form.contact_name.border = true;
contact_form.contact_name.borderColor = inputcol;
contact_form.contact_name.type = "input";
contact_form.contact_name.setNewTextFormat(my_fmt);
contact_form.contact_name.text = "";
FYI I am creating this outside the movieclip containing the form (called contact_form) and then adding it into that mc specifically because I thought this may be necessary as doing it within the mc itself (using this.createTextField....) didn't work, however both seem to have the same effect.
I am then doing various checks on the input box contents (to make sure it's not empty etc), this also works fine and gives me the relevant error if it is empty so it's accessing it correctly. I then use the following code to submit the variables and check_status checks the success/failure of the php script and alerts the user accordingly:
loadVariables("http://www.makeaportfolio.com/send_email.php?flashmo=" + random(1000), this, "POST");
message_status.text = "sending....";
var interval_id = setInterval(check_status, 400);
This works fine however does not pick up the value of the dynamically created text input (however does pick up all the text inputs that are manually added to the stage). I am rather confused as to why it's not picking this up and am not sure how I set it to do so, i would be immensely grateful if someone could point me in the right direction?
Thanks so much for your help as ever,
Dave

Answer 1

Hi kglad,
I'm sorry but i still don't understand what you mean? They are all text inputs which are defined in AS2 (you can see the code in my first post), the values (inputtext.text) are surely set by the user when they enter information into the input boxes. Accessing these works fine within my flash file, they just don't get passed to my php file. I got round this by manually creating duplicate textinputs on the stage for each dynamically created textinput which are all hidden, then assigning the values of the dynamically created inputs to the manually created inputs before loading the php file. This works fine as it picks up the manually placed inputs as local. I assume it's something to do with the scope of the dynamically created inputs but I cannot work out how you would ensure they would be picked up as even when you explicitly create them within the relevant mc it doesn't pick them up. As I say i've managed to get it working in a rather convoluted way which is good but would be most interested to understand why the other method doesn't work.
Thanks so much for your help,
Dave