HTML text entered manually into a text field using the Text tool in the Flash authoring tool will not be rendered as HTML. To display HTML-formatted text on screen, we must assign HTML text to a TextField object's htmlText property or, in Flash 5, to the variable associated with the text field. For example:
// Flash 6 syntax theField_txt.htmlText = "<P><B>Error!</B> <I>No email address!</I></P>"; // Flash 5 syntax theField_txt = "<P><B>Error!</B> <I>No email address!</I></P>";
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In the Flash Player, HTML can also be entered into a movie via an HTML-enabled or regular (non-HTML) user-input text field.
When regular text is entered into an HTML-enabled user-input text field, the field's htmlText property includes markup tags that are added automatically. For example, the input text "Hi there" is converted to the htmlText property value:
'<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="10" COLOR="#000000">Hi there</FONT></P>'
When the HTML characters <, >, &, ", and ' are entered into an HTML-enabled user-input text field, the field's htmlText property represents them with the entities >, <, &, ", and '. For example, the input text "<B>hi there</B>" is converted to the htmlText property value:
'<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="10" COLOR="#000000"><B>hi there</B></FONT></P>'
In both cases, the original (non-marked-up) value is available via the text property.
When regular or HTML text is entered into a normal (non-HTML) user-input text field, no modification of the entered text occurs. Regular user-input text fields allow raw HTML code to be entered into a movie without distortion. This is useful for showing or receiving HTML tags verbatim when you don't want them ignored, rendered, or interpreted.
An example showing HTML-enabled and regular user-input text field data entry is available at the online Code Depot.
