ActionScript Explained
Let's take a closer look into what makes this work. You might be surprised at the other uses you find for these concepts in the future, even outside of the world of finding and selecting.

finder.onRelease = function() {

Here we're making a function that's called upon every time someone lets go of the left mouse button after they click on it.

Selection.setFocus("_root.textInstance");

In this line we're setting the selection, which is what is currently being interacted with, to the text field we'll be selecting text in. We need the "_root" before "textInstance" because the ActionScript in this line is for the button, and we need to tell it to go back to the main timeline to look for our text field instance.

var inputterString:String = _root.inputter;

var inputLength:Number = inputterString.length;

In these two lines, we're creating two variables. The first variable is set to be the same thing as what is in the input field at the time the button is pressed. The second variable takes our newly created variable and counts the number of characters in it, which we'll use later on to do some calculations with.

textStart = textVar.indexOf(inputter, 0);

Here we're setting the textStart variable to be a number that is equal to the position in the text field where the text we're searching for begins. The "0" represents where we start searching; in this case at the beginning of the text.

if (inputLength>0) {

textEnd = textStart+inputLength;

} else {

textEnd = 0;

}

With this if statement, we're checking to see if someone has typed characters into the input box. If so, it will set the textEnd variable to the amount of character typed in plus the start position of the charaters being searched for.

After this we have an else statement, which will set the textEnd variable to 0 if no text has been entered, so nothing will be selected.

if (textStart>=0) {

Selection.setSelection(textStart, textEnd);

} else {

Selection.setSelection(0, 0);

}

Here we have another if statement that controls what gets selected (highlighted) in the text box. The reason we have an if statement here is because the indexOf function we used to find the text start point will return "-1" if it doesn't find the text it was looking for.

If the textStart variable is "-1", that means the text wasn't found, so it will go to the else statement where no text will be highlighted. This is to prevent users from entering text that isn't found. Since the inputLength variable is the same whether or not the text is actually found, and the textEnd variable is based on inputLength, before this statement was added the user could fool the selector into highlighting characters in the beginning even if they weren't the ones being searched for.

_root.textEnd = textEnd;

In this little tidbit we're setting up a variable for our Find Next button which will tell it where to start searching. We want it to start searching after where it left off the first time, so we don't find the same instance again.

findNext.onRelease = function() {

Selection.setFocus("_root.textInstance");

var inputterString:String = _root.inputter;

var inputLength:Number = inputterString.length;

textStart = textVar.indexOf(inputter, _root.textEnd);

if (inputLength>0) {

textEnd = textStart+inputLength;

} else {

textEnd = 0;

}

if (textStart>=0) {

Selection.setSelection(textStart, textEnd);

} else {

Selection.setSelection(0, 0);

}

_root.textEnd = textEnd;

}

This is the ActionScript for the Find Next button. It is identical except for one line with a difference that I will explain below.

textStart = textVar.indexOf(inputter, _root.textEnd);

As you can see the difference here is that it starts to search the input string at the end of where it was at the last cycle. Since this button also includes the line that defines textEnd, every time the button is pressed it will find the next instance until it runs out of places to find what it's looking for. When it can't find anymore, textStart is defined as "-1" so nothing will be selected on the next press.

	Note
If you want to use this tutorial for Static Text boxes, I have provided the .fla from a version of this tutorial that has a Static Text box. Static Text .fla

Closing Time
That's about it for this tutorial. If you want to learn about loading Dynamic Text from external sources, check out This Tutorial by Kirupa.

If you have any questions, make sure you post about it in the Forums. If I don't answer, one of the other great forum members will.

The files I used in this tutorial can be downloaded below:

Download Source Files (ZIP)

Have fun scripting!

Kyle Murray (aka Krilnon) Reclipse

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