Using input text that's in a MC

Question

Hi all -
Tearing my hair out on this, and it seems like it shouldn't be that difficult.
I've got an input text box (opAnswerTxt) that I've added to a movie clip (questAns) using AS3:
questAns.addChild(opAnswerTxt);
That's fine -- I'm able to type text into the text field. Now I need to trace this text. (Ultimately, I will want to capture the text in a variable and then reuse the text in a dynamic text field, but just tracing to make sure I can get the text first.)
I added a button (opSaveBtn) - also to the MC - and added an event listener to the button:
questAns.addChild(opSaveBtn);
opSaveBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, saveOpInput);
but can't seem to trace the input text. Here's what I'm using:
function saveOpInput(me:MouseEvent):void
  trace (opAnswerTxt.text);
My output is the original default text I have in the text box, rather than the text I just typed in.
When I add the input text box to the stage, rather than to the MC, it works fine.
Note: I've tried targeting the instance -- see the following -- but I get an error.
trace (questAns.opAnswerTxt.text);
Also tried trace (MovieClip(root).questAns.opAnswerTxt.text) and that didn't work either.
Can anyone help?
Thanks!
Miriam

Answer 1

Thanks for your quick response. You may be right on this. The MC (and child text box and button) are all within a loop that's parsing an external XML file.
Basically, I'm trying to create a "form". The questions are in the external XML file (so they can be updated by the customer later). I've got a loop that's parsing the XML file and creating an MC for each question element it finds. Each MC has a question text field (dynamic - populated from the XML), an answer text field (the input text field), and a save button. Here's the code:
for (var i:int = 0; i < opLen; i++)
//declare variables - the XML is loaded in the first frame - this all works fine
var opQuestionElement:XML = opQuestion[i];
var opQuestText:String = opQuestionElement;
var opQuestionsElement:XML = opQuestions[i];
var opQuestNum:int = opQuestion[i];
//add container to hold each q&a
questAns = new qAndAMC();
questAns.width = 575;
questAns.height = 200;
questAns.x = 0;
questAns.y = 0 + i * questAns.height;
containerOp.addChild(questAns);
questAns.name = "Q&A #" + (i+1);
//add question text
var opQuestionTxt:TextField = new TextField();
opQuestionTxt.multiline = true;
opQuestionTxt.wordWrap = true;
opQuestionTxt.defaultTextFormat = qTextFormat;
opQuestionTxt.embedFonts = true;
opQuestionTxt.htmlText = (i+1) + ". " + opQuestText.toString();
opQuestionTxt.width = 545;
opQuestionTxt.x = 5;
opQuestionTxt.y = 10;
questAns.addChild(opQuestionTxt);
opQuestionTxt.name = "OpQuestTxt " + (i+1);
trace(opQuestionTxt.name);
opQuestionTxtFieldList.push(opQuestionTxt);
//add answer input text box;
var opAnswerTxt:TextField = new TextField();
opAnswerTxt.type = "input";
opAnswerTxt.multiline = true;
opAnswerTxt.wordWrap = true;
opAnswerTxt.background = true;
opAnswerTxt.backgroundColor = 0xFFFFFF;
opAnswerTxt.border = true;
opAnswerTxt.defaultTextFormat = qTextFormat;
opAnswerTxt.embedFonts = true;
opAnswerTxt.width = 545;
opAnswerTxt.height = 110;
opAnswerTxt.x = 10;
opAnswerTxt.y = 60;
opAnswerTxt.text = "Here's some text";
addChild(opAnswerTxt);
//add save btn
opSaveBtn = new saveButton();
opSaveBtn.x = 522;
opSaveBtn.y = 188;
opSaveBtn.buttonMode = true;
questAns.addChild(opSaveBtn);
opSaveBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, saveOpInput);
function saveOpInput(me:MouseEvent):void
  trace (opAnswerTxt.text); //This currently traces "Here's some text", rather than what I type in
The two things I need to solve are:
1. I want to be able to "save" the input text in each of the input fields, so if the user navigates away from this frame, the text they input last time isn't lost. Ideally, I'd like all of the input text fields to display whatever text they entered last time -- but they should still be an input field so they can edit the text if they want.
2. I want to be able to print (or save to a text file) ALL of the question and answer text fields. I believe I need to create a separate print job MC for this?
Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!!
Miriam