At one point or another during the time you write applications with ActionScript 3 you will have to send parameters from to an event handler. By default you can’t send information unless you use the DataEvent, but that only allows you to send a string. That is OK if that is all you need to send but how about multiple parameters? How about an object or references?

In the example below we create a square on the stage that then will dispatch a custom event with 3 parameters (two strings and one number).

[as]package {

import flash.display.Sprite;
import event.CustomEvent;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;

public class App extends Sprite
{

var square : Sprite ;

public function App()
{
init ( ) ;
}

private function init ( ) : void
{

//add the event listener to the Document class.

this.addEventListener(
CustomEvent.MOUSE_CLICK,
customEventHandler ) ;

// Draw a square on stage and add a mouseEvent
// that then will dispatch a custom event

square = drawSquare();
square.buttonMode = true;
square.addEventListener (
MouseEvent.CLICK,dispatchCustomEvent ) ;

addChild(square);

}

private function dispatchCustomEvent ( e : Event ) : void
{
dispatchEvent ( new CustomEvent (
CustomEvent.MOUSE_CLICK ,
“myParam1”,
“myParam2”,
3 ) ) ;
}

private function customEventHandler ( e :CustomEvent )
{
trace( “Param 1: ” + e.param1 ) ;
trace( “Param 1: ” + e.param2 ) ;
trace( “Param 1: ” + e.param3 ) ;
}

private function drawSquare ( ) : Sprite
{

var square:Sprite = new Sprite();

square.graphics.beginFill(0x000000);
square.graphics.drawRect(100, 100, 100, 100);
square.graphics.endFill();
return square as Sprite;
}

}

}[/as]

Custom Class

[as]package event
{

import flash.events.Event;

public class CustomEvent extends Event
{

public static const MOUSE_CLICK : String = “mouseClick”;

public var param1 : String ;
public var param2 : String ;
public var param3 : int ;

public function CustomEvent(
type : String,
param1 : String,
param2 : String,
param3 : int,
bubbles:Boolean = false,
cancelable:Boolean = false )
{

super ( type, bubbles, cancelable ) ;

this.param1 = param1;
this.param2 = param2;
this.param3 = param3;

}

override public function clone( ): Event
{
return new CustomEvent( type, param1, param2, param3,
bubbles, cancelable );
}
}
}[/as]