Use of a variable to reference a text box in an instance

Hi,
I have been enjoying the discussions on this board and have learnt a lot from them thus far.
I have a question, but I don't know if I can't word it correctly, or I am looking in the wrong place.
Lets say I have 3 Movie Clip Symbols in my Library : Movie0, Movie1 and Movie2
Each movie has a dynamic text box: "TextBox1"
I want to be able to write a function that can manipulate the alpha(or any attribute) of the TextBox1 in all three MovieClips.
In my limited experience I thought I could do something like the following:
for (var row:int = 0; row < dataArray.length; row++)
Movie(row).TextBox1.alpha = 1;
I hoped that this would loop through 3 times and set the alpha of the TextBox1 in all three movies to 1.
Is this possible? Can you reference an instance with use of a variable?
Any advise is greatly appreciated.
Cheers!

You say these movieclips are in your library, so no code can affect them while they are there, except to create instances of them dynamically and place them on the stage.
So I'll assume you mean you have dataArray.length number of movieclips on the stage with the instance names following the naming scheme you indicated:
for (var row:int = 0; row < dataArray.length; row++)
this["Movie"+String(row)].TextBox1.alpha = 1;

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Hello all;
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I have come up with what I believe is my best solution based on what
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Photoshop: Making a text box with color or border.

How do you fill a text box in Photoshop?
Answer: You CAN’T.
Solution: You CAN do anything you want in Photoshop -we know it’s GREAT - but the steps are not always so easy. See below for solutions to making it seem that the text box is filled with color, bordered, semi-tansparent etc.
In Photoshop, a text box is mostly about the text inside and less about the box that surrounds it. In other words, the box is always transparent and all effects apply to the font shapes typed inside by the user. Photoshop (CS4) can produce incredible, professional, amazing text images. No Doubt About It!
A Photoshop text box can display one of two types of bounding boxes:
Its OBJECT bounding box is there for moving the whole text layer, rotating it, duplicating it and distorting. Clicking once on the text layer pallet and selecting the move tool (v) will produce this bounding box. The direct selection tool (a) won’t recognize it. Note: If you try to resize the box as an object, it also distorts/stretches the text inside. This can make cool effects but usually you want the text to stay the way the font was designed. See: Layers>Type>Warp Text.
The TEXT bounding box is there for highlighting, re-typing and selecting the margins of the actual text/paragraph etc. Selecting the text tool and clicking over existing text will produce this bounding box.
Some features are accessible in either mode.
The Photoshop text tool has two types of cursors:
The NEW text box cursor looks like a text insertion cursor (often seen in word processing) WITH a dotted box around it.
To produce the new text box cursor just select the text tool and move over to a new work area.
The EDIT text cursor looks very much like the ordinary cursor people are familiar with (no dotted box).
To produce the edit text tool, hover the text tool over EXISTING text and the cursor changes to the simple insertion shape (without the dotted box). A click now will put you into text editing mode, not new text box mode. This drove me batty for a while because I was used to clicking anywhere inside an existing text box and the blinking cursor would pop in automatically - usually at the end of the last letter. This doesn’t happen in Photoshop; if that NEW text box tool is active, it will try to place a new box anywhere you click sometimes overlapping another.
When in this mode (edit existing text) you can carefully hover the arrow to the edges of the text box and resize the bounding box without altering the shape of the text itself. This is how you make the text box larger or smaller to fit/accommodate your needs. You can also highlight text, insert between words/letters. Highlighted text is available for changing its font, color, size, cutting/pasting etc.
To get OUT of the EDIT text mode, click the check box on the tool column above or type enter (not return) or type cmd-return (MAC), ctrl-return (WIN). If you want to cancel any changes to an existing text box click the ex-circle on the tool column or press the esc key (top left of keyboard-escape key)
OK, THE MAIN POINT:
To make an effect that looks like a text box that is filled, bordered, semi-transparent etc., you will have to create an object shape (box) and place it just behind (under) the text box. Linking the two allows you to move them around easily. The drawback is that, when you need a larger box, you’ll have to alter the size of both boxes and possibly re-center them to each other (I know it’s sort of dumb to have so many steps just to get a shaded text box or bordered one.)
Begin by selecting the Rectangle shape tool and draw a shape on the screen of any size. In the layers pallet a layer is created with two items (layer thumbnail and vector mask) Double click the one on the left the layer thumbnail). Change its color to a light one such as baby blue or yellow.
Now select the text tool and click once over that shape. A text box is created exactly the same size of the rectangle (any shape will work too).
Type some text into that box and change the font type, size and color to something you might use regularly. Check to see that the text color is black (can be changed later). The text automatically wraps around when you reach the edge of this box and fits well (inside margins can be altered by pixel later).
Now link the two boxes to one another. Shift-click each layer in the layers pallet to select both and choose the link button at the bottom of the window for layers or go to Layers>Link Layers. Now when you move one it will move the other too!
Using the paragraph tools you can center text, indent first line, and add space between paragraphs. Except the first paragraph seems too close to the top of the colored rectangle; doesn’t it? Photoshop won’t add extra leading (horizontal space) between the text box and the top of the first paragraph.
There are two ways to fix this:
1.     Select the text tool and click inside the existing text then hover the pointer just above the little box/tab in the top center of that rectangle and bring it down just a bit.
2.     Or you could unlink the two layers (to unlink just click link again while one of the two layers is selected in pallet) and move the colored rectangle up just a bit.
In the first instance it was not necessary to unlink the boxes. This is the advantage because altering the colored rectangle without unlinking will distort your text as will altering the text box if you are not in object text mode (see intro.)
Ok, some advantages:
Now that you have this set up you can use the background box (colored rectangle) to make other effects. Select it as a separate layer but you won’t have to unlink it. To make the box semi-transparent change either the layer OPACITY or the layer FILL (found in the layer pallet).
To create a border box:
1.     Select the colored rectangle box and under Layers>Styles>Blending Options (or just double click in an open area of the layer pallet for that shape.)
2.     Select Stroke, change: Fill Type color, Color black, Size 4, Position inside, Blend Mode normal, Opacity 100%. Click OK/Apply
3.     Back in the layer pallet, change the Fill to 0% and you will just have a border with attached text box. You may have to alter the inside text box again depending on the thickness of that border especially if you made the Position to be inside to keep the sharpness of the rectangle.
4.     Yes this will work with other shapes and even custom shapes. Remember to draw the shape first and immediately place a new text box over it BEFORE any other alteration is done. This ensures that Photoshop creates a text box exactly the same size/dimension of your chosen shape. It even makes margins fit irregular shapes like triangles.
5.     Try it!

Toxic Cumquat wrote:
How do you fill a text box in Photoshop?
Answer: You CAN’T.
Solution: You CAN do anything you want in Photoshop -we know it’s GREAT - but the steps are not always so easy. See below for solutions to making it seem that the text box is filled with color, bordered, semi-tansparent etc.
In Photoshop, a text box is mostly about the text inside and less about the box that surrounds it. In other words, the box is always transparent and all effects apply to the font shapes typed inside by the user. Photoshop (CS4) can produce incredible, professional, amazing text images. No Doubt About It!
A Photoshop text box can display one of two types of bounding boxes:
Its OBJECT bounding box is there for moving the whole text layer, rotating it, duplicating it and distorting. Clicking once on the text layer pallet and selecting the move tool (v) will produce this bounding box. The direct selection tool (a) won’t recognize it. Note: If you try to resize the box as an object, it also distorts/stretches the text inside. This can make cool effects but usually you want the text to stay the way the font was designed. See: Layers>Type>Warp Text.
The TEXT bounding box is there for highlighting, re-typing and selecting the margins of the actual text/paragraph etc. Selecting the text tool and clicking over existing text will produce this bounding box.
Some features are accessible in either mode.
The Photoshop text tool has two types of cursors:
The NEW text box cursor looks like a text insertion cursor (often seen in word processing) WITH a dotted box around it.
To produce the new text box cursor just select the text tool and move over to a new work area.
The EDIT text cursor looks very much like the ordinary cursor people are familiar with (no dotted box).
To produce the edit text tool, hover the text tool over EXISTING text and the cursor changes to the simple insertion shape (without the dotted box). A click now will put you into text editing mode, not new text box mode. This drove me batty for a while because I was used to clicking anywhere inside an existing text box and the blinking cursor would pop in automatically - usually at the end of the last letter. This doesn’t happen in Photoshop; if that NEW text box tool is active, it will try to place a new box anywhere you click sometimes overlapping another.
When in this mode (edit existing text) you can carefully hover the arrow to the edges of the text box and resize the bounding box without altering the shape of the text itself. This is how you make the text box larger or smaller to fit/accommodate your needs. You can also highlight text, insert between words/letters. Highlighted text is available for changing its font, color, size, cutting/pasting etc.
To get OUT of the EDIT text mode, click the check box on the tool column above or type enter (not return) or type cmd-return (MAC), ctrl-return (WIN). If you want to cancel any changes to an existing text box click the ex-circle on the tool column or press the esc key (top left of keyboard-escape key)
OK, THE MAIN POINT:
To make an effect that looks like a text box that is filled, bordered, semi-transparent etc., you will have to create an object shape (box) and place it just behind (under) the text box. Linking the two allows you to move them around easily. The drawback is that, when you need a larger box, you’ll have to alter the size of both boxes and possibly re-center them to each other (I know it’s sort of dumb to have so many steps just to get a shaded text box or bordered one.)
Begin by selecting the Rectangle shape tool and draw a shape on the screen of any size. In the layers pallet a layer is created with two items (layer thumbnail and vector mask) Double click the one on the left the layer thumbnail). Change its color to a light one such as baby blue or yellow.
Now select the text tool and click once over that shape. A text box is created exactly the same size of the rectangle (any shape will work too).
Type some text into that box and change the font type, size and color to something you might use regularly. Check to see that the text color is black (can be changed later). The text automatically wraps around when you reach the edge of this box and fits well (inside margins can be altered by pixel later).
Now link the two boxes to one another. Shift-click each layer in the layers pallet to select both and choose the link button at the bottom of the window for layers or go to Layers>Link Layers. Now when you move one it will move the other too!
Using the paragraph tools you can center text, indent first line, and add space between paragraphs. Except the first paragraph seems too close to the top of the colored rectangle; doesn’t it? Photoshop won’t add extra leading (horizontal space) between the text box and the top of the first paragraph.
There are two ways to fix this:
1.     Select the text tool and click inside the existing text then hover the pointer just above the little box/tab in the top center of that rectangle and bring it down just a bit.
2.     Or you could unlink the two layers (to unlink just click link again while one of the two layers is selected in pallet) and move the colored rectangle up just a bit.
In the first instance it was not necessary to unlink the boxes. This is the advantage because altering the colored rectangle without unlinking will distort your text as will altering the text box if you are not in object text mode (see intro.)
Ok, some advantages:
Now that you have this set up you can use the background box (colored rectangle) to make other effects. Select it as a separate layer but you won’t have to unlink it. To make the box semi-transparent change either the layer OPACITY or the layer FILL (found in the layer pallet).
To create a border box:
1.     Select the colored rectangle box and under Layers>Styles>Blending Options (or just double click in an open area of the layer pallet for that shape.)
2.     Select Stroke, change: Fill Type color, Color black, Size 4, Position inside, Blend Mode normal, Opacity 100%. Click OK/Apply
3.     Back in the layer pallet, change the Fill to 0% and you will just have a border with attached text box. You may have to alter the inside text box again depending on the thickness of that border especially if you made the Position to be inside to keep the sharpness of the rectangle.
4.     Yes this will work with other shapes and even custom shapes. Remember to draw the shape first and immediately place a new text box over it BEFORE any other alteration is done. This ensures that Photoshop creates a text box exactly the same size/dimension of your chosen shape. It even makes margins fit irregular shapes like triangles.
5.     Try it! Or try using Indesign!
There. I fixed that for you.

How to get the number from a xml file to flash as3 Text Box "Get_Days"?

Hi,
I have to daily update the number of days finished from the specified days. Say, One work to be finished in 30 days. And the start day is today. So, tomorrow it will be 29 days left. and so on....
So, instead of reducing one number everyday from the last days number using flash, it will be easy changing in xml file.
How can I do that?
I have a simple text box "dynamic text box" and the instance name : "Days_Left". Since I am learner, I cannot make complex projects. I am learning small things with very few lines of code which can be modified using xml files.
So, Whatever I type in a xml file, it should appear in a text box called "Days_Left".
Thanks.

then you can use:
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// this is today's date
var projectDueDate:Date = new Date(2010,11,29);
// use whatever date you want for the due date.
// months are zero-based. (ie, jan is month 0, dec is month 11.)
var daysToCompleteProject:Number = (projectDueDate.getTime()-currentDate.getTime())/(1000*60*60*24);
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Pictures in text boxes on Pages 5.0

So the update to Pages has had quite a radical overhaul. Most of it I can get used to but there seems to be a major change to how text boxes work. Previously if I create a text box I can drag around the page and everything remains inside of it, in the same place. Now, the pictures I put into text boxes stay on the same part of the page, but the text box moves. How can I arrange it so if I insert a picture into a text box it remains in the same place always.
Also, editing text boxes seems strange now. Trying to click the cursor into the text box so you can edit text seems bizarrly difficult and takes way too many clicks. What's going on there?
Sorry one more thing - I use Pages every single day for something with exactly the same format each time. Therefore being able to simply highlight text from the day before and paste over it with the new text was a massive time saver. Especially as using "alt+cmd+shift+v" would keep it in the same format. Now it doesn't paste over, it pastes but keeps the old text below it, even though I'm still highlighting the old text.
Thanks.

I think that these issues are most likely bugs. I have found and reported a couple bugs related to text boxes as well. You can and should report bugs to Apple here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages.html
Meanwhile, a workaround for your first issue that I have been using is selecting the image in the text box, and also selecting the text box itself, and choosing Arrange -> Group. This will move everything around together, while allowing you to double-click on the text an extra time to still edit it. It's definitely a workaround and not a bug fix, but it should allow you to work semi-normally until the bug does get fixed by Apple.
As regards your second issue, I am not able to reproduce that problem when I test it. For me, selecting text and pasting over it, with or without matching style, replaces only the highlighted text. Can you perhaps provide more details and how this issue happens?

Does a text box for an ebook have to be the exact size?

I'm using Indesign to create an ebook. The usable, non-bordered area of each page is 800 x 600.
For each page I use the Type Tool button to allow me to create a text box that fills the page area of 800 x600 pixels. I go to great effort to make sure it is aligned perfectly and exactly the right size. I have slight muscular problems in my hands which makes them unsteady so I sometimes don't draw the box exactly the same size and have to undo it and start again a few times. It would be easier for me if I didn't have to be so precise.
My question is if I used the Type Tool to draw a Text box that is bigger than the 800x600 page would this have repurcussions in how the ebook functions or displays or does it not make any difference?

I've not been using Master Pages.
I'm using Indesign to create an ebook which I will output an epub file.
I set the page dimensions then I have been adding a page as I progress and then using the Type Tool to create a text box for each new page.
So when you say 'ePub has no exact size predefined by the layouter it is like xhtml.' does this mean the text box size doesn't matter?

Text box ignores spacing settings.

Using the tooltip widget. Put a text box inside the trigger. Set left, right, and bottom spacing.
Right spacing is ignored.
Removed spacing and used left and right margin instead (in text settings), this worked fine.
See attached images, showing how the right spacing is ignored. The left trigger uses margins and the right trigger uses spacing.

That is due to a bug in Acrobat 9 where multiple carriage returns get replaced by a single one. It's still present as of 9.4.0, but I'm not sure about more recent updates.

Q2: text boxes blacked out in preview

Using the Special Occasions template there are text boxes in two colours, a light blue and a light grey.
When I preview a book in pdf before buying or printing the light grey text boxes are all blacked out. Of course the easy solution is to delete them and do without them which I have done but they do add a little something to the template and I would keep them if I could.
Any ideas whether what I am seeing is normal? Does it happen for others? Is there anything that can fix it?

Hi again
Surely you realize that if you are doing what I suggested,
you will need to create a text caption and position it over the
previously empty fields. You may also want to ensure there is no
transition applied to them. And in addition to that, note that the
Text Entry Box may well be pausing the slide before the caption has
had a chance to display. So check your timings.
Cheers... Rick

Text Justify in text box

I am using illustrator CS4 and I have text in text box and trying to equal justify. I have two columns of text in one page. I have created this brochure as follows
1. I use sheet 81/2x11
2. create two text boxes
3. import text from MS word documents into these two text boxes.
4. Trying to do equal justify, so I have selected individual text columns and try press justify but I did not see any chage.
Here is text look like in one text box and it is righ now left alian but I want equal justify.
We are offering CRM software that is an all-in-one, fully
integrated solution that combines the robust power of
client management and document management. By
combining CRM, documents imaging and demography
records in a single solution, our CRM software solution
captures and manages episodic and longitudinal customer
records information and delivers automated and streamlined
workflow that allows comprehensive, expedient and
meticulous monitoring of customer activity from administrative,
financial points of view. The result is a solution
that promotes the timely and effective delivery of HR.
Can you guid me through. Thanks.

If that is the actual text you are using to put in your document I can see why it won't justify.
Place it in Illustrator and click on > Type > Show hidden characters
You'll see line returns at various points in the text. They are preventing the justification happening. If you go through and remove them, you'll see the justification doing what you want it to do.
If there's not much text, do it manually. Otherwise go back to the original text document and get rid of its formatting

Use of a variable to reference a text box in an instance

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