You want to get the user-selected value(s) from a menu.
Use getSelectedItem( ) (for both combo boxes and list boxes) or getSelectedItems( ) (for list boxes only).
You can use the getSelectedItem( ) method to get the selected value from a menu. The method returns an object with a label and a data property, representing the user-selected menu item. The getSelectedItem( ) method works for both combo boxes and single-selection list boxes. If you use getSelectedItem( ) with a multiple-selection list box, it returns the last selected item in the list:
// Displays the label property of the selected item from a combo box. trace(myComboBox_cb.getSelectedItem( ).label); // Displays the data property of the selected item from a combo box. trace(myComboBox_cb.getSelectedItem( ).data);
Generally, the label property is used for display purposes, while the data property is used to submit the form data to a server for further processing.
If implementing a list box that allows multiple selections at once (see Recipe 11.3), you should retrieve the selections using getSelectedItems( ), which returns an array of objects with label and data properties:
// Store the array of selected items in selectedItems. selectedItems = myListBox_lb.getSelectedItems( ); // Display the label and data properties of each element in the selectedItems array. for (var i = 0; i < selectedItems.length; i++) { trace(selectedItems[i].label); trace(selectedItems[i].data); }
Typically, ActionScript developers use either getSelectedItem( ) or getSelectedItems( ) within the click handler for a form's Submit button:
function onClick ( ) { var selectedVal = myListBox_lb.getSelectedItem( ).data; // Do something with data here. } submitBtn.setClickHandler("onClick");