Learning Flash the Hard Way, from the Bottom Up

So I am capturing global keypress events, and I want to suppress my action if some component has focus.  A quick read of the docs and the FocusManager class looks like the ticket!  More specifically, FocusManager::getFocus() looks like exactly the function I need.  So I go ahead and call it, only to find it’s not static — I can only call it on a FocusManager object.  Which brings to mind: how do I find one?  After a bit of searching, I see some sample code that just refers to a variable “focusManager”.  I don’t see it defined in the same, so I assume it’s some magic global — I drop that into my code, and it works!

So if you want a global FocusManager, just try “focusManager” and see if that works for you.

Why does that work?  Well, after a bit more thought, I consider: Perhaps focusManager is an attribute on the Application class?   And maybe the keypress handler function I’m writing in the <mx:script> section of my MXML file is actually a method extending the Application class, meaning all the Application protected attributes are accessible in my function?  A quick look at the Application docs, and sure enough, that’s the case.  Cool!