Using placed/named instances inside another movieclip

Question

I'm trying to be good and make all my movieclips linked to a
class file, but I'd still like the convenience of placing and
naming other instances instead of having to declare a variable,
instantiating it and addChild-ing it in the class file. Is this
possible?
Here's the situation: I've created a library.fla with
components, for example LCARSButton and LCARSElbow. But now I want
to build movie clips (inside of library.fla) that use these
components, for example LCARSPrefs.
I can create a frame script inside of LCARSPrefs that
positions the instances of LCARSButton and LCARSElbows that I
placed and named on the stage of LCARSPrefs. But if I try linking
LCARSPrefs to a class file, say LCARSPrefs.as, I'll get an 1120
error telling me that I haven't declared the variables that
correspond to the instances of LCARSButton and LCARSElbow that I
placed on the stage.
Is it impossible to mix these two approaches? If you link to
a class, are you forced to use code to declare and add instances of
components?
I would prefer to have a mix of these approaches because I'm
trying to create a runtime shared library of components and the
movies that incorporate these components. For instance, I want
logs.fla to import LCARSPrefs from the library and I want to see a
visual representation of that imported instance. But if I can't
place instances of the components into the LCARSPrefs movieclip
back in library.fla, I will see nothing when I import it into
logs.fla.
I could make LCARSPrefs yet another component, thus giving it
a livePreview, but that seems overkill to me.
I'd appreciate any help.
Thanks,
Jennifer

Answer 1

OK, I've attached one solution that just seems horribly
convoluted to me. I have to create a new variable that's just a
reference to the placed instance: _square_mc =
SquareComponent(getChildByName("square_mc"));
Or is there a simpler method?
Again, thanks, Jennifer