| TextField._visible Property | Flash 6 |
| whether the text field is shown or hidden | read/write |
The Boolean _visible property indicates whether theField is currently shown (true) or hidden (false). We use _visible as a quick means of hiding a text field from view. Hidden fields can still be controlled via ActionScript and generally operate as normal; they simply are not displayed on screen. However, a hidden text field can receive neither focus nor user input, so its onChanged( ), onKillFocus( ), and onSetFocus( ) events do not fire. However, the onScroller( ) event will still fire in response to text field content changes.
The initial value of the _visible property is true for all text fields, even for text fields that are fully transparent or completely off stage. The _visible property changes only when it is modified explicitly by a script; think of it as a way to show and hide text fields programmatically, not as a reflection of all factors, such as position and transparency, that can affect a field's visibility.
Hiding a text field using the _visible property is preferred to setting it to fully transparent or moving it off stage because the Flash Player does not attempt to draw text fields with _visible set to false, thus improving rendering performance.
The following code hides theField_txt:
this.createTextField("theField_txt", 1, 0, 0, 200, 20);
theField_txt.text = "You won't see this!";
theField_txt._visible = false;
