Screen - Adobe ActionScript® 3 (AS3 ) API Reference

Package	flash.display
Class	public final class Screen
Inheritance	Screen EventDispatcher Object

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0

The Screen class provides information about the display screens available to this application.

Screens are independent desktop areas within a possibly larger "virtual desktop." The origin of the virtual desktop is the top-left corner of the operating-system-designated main screen. Thus, the coordinates for the bounds of an individual display screen may be negative. There may also be areas of the virtual desktop that are not within any of the display screens.

The Screen class includes static class members for accessing the available screen objects and instance members for accessing the properties of an individual screen. Screen information should not be cached since it can be changed by a user at any time.

Note that there is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondance between screens and the physical monitors attached to a computer. For example, two monitors may display the same screen.

You cannot instantiate the Screen class directly. Calls to the new Screen() constructor throw an ArgumentError exception.

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Display screens in AIR

Public Properties

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	Property		Defined By
		bounds : Rectangle [read-only] The bounds of this screen.	Screen
		colorDepth : int [read-only] The color depth of this screen (expressed in number of bits).	Screen
		constructor : Object A reference to the class object or constructor function for a given object instance.	Object
		mainScreen : Screen [static] [read-only] The primary display.	Screen
		screens : Array [static] [read-only] The array of the currently available screens.	Screen
		visibleBounds : Rectangle [read-only] The bounds of the area on this screen in which windows can be visible.	Screen

Public Methods

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	Method		Defined By
		addEventListener(type:String, listener:Function, useCapture:Boolean = false, priority:int = 0, useWeakReference:Boolean = false):void Registers an event listener object with an EventDispatcher object so that the listener receives notification of an event.	EventDispatcher
		dispatchEvent(event:Event):Boolean Dispatches an event into the event flow.	EventDispatcher
		getScreensForRectangle(rect:Rectangle):Array [static] Returns the (possibly empty) set of screens that intersect the provided rectangle.	Screen
		hasEventListener(type:String):Boolean Checks whether the EventDispatcher object has any listeners registered for a specific type of event.	EventDispatcher
		hasOwnProperty(name:String):Boolean Indicates whether an object has a specified property defined.	Object
		isPrototypeOf(theClass:Object):Boolean Indicates whether an instance of the Object class is in the prototype chain of the object specified as the parameter.	Object
		propertyIsEnumerable(name:String):Boolean Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.	Object
		removeEventListener(type:String, listener:Function, useCapture:Boolean = false):void Removes a listener from the EventDispatcher object.	EventDispatcher
		setPropertyIsEnumerable(name:String, isEnum:Boolean = true):void Sets the availability of a dynamic property for loop operations.	Object
		toLocaleString():String Returns the string representation of this object, formatted according to locale-specific conventions.	Object
		toString():String Returns the string representation of the specified object.	Object
		valueOf():Object Returns the primitive value of the specified object.	Object
		willTrigger(type:String):Boolean Checks whether an event listener is registered with this EventDispatcher object or any of its ancestors for the specified event type.	EventDispatcher

Events

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	Event		Summary	Defined By
		activate	[broadcast event] Dispatched when the Flash Player or AIR application gains operating system focus and becomes active.	EventDispatcher
		deactivate	[broadcast event] Dispatched when the Flash Player or AIR application operating loses system focus and is becoming inactive.	EventDispatcher

Property Detail

bounds

property

bounds:Rectangle [read-only]

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0

The bounds of this screen.

The screen location is relative to the virtual desktop.

On Linux systems that use certain window managers, this property returns the desktop bounds, not the screen's visible bounds.

Implementation
public function get bounds():Rectangle

Example ( How to use this example )

The following example shows how to get the bounds of a screen (in this case, the primary display screen):

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import flash.display.Screen;
import flash.geom.Rectangle;

var mainScreen:Screen = Screen.mainScreen;
var screenBounds:Rectangle = mainScreen.bounds;

colorDepth

property

colorDepth:int [read-only]

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0

The color depth of this screen (expressed in number of bits).

Implementation
public function get colorDepth():int

Example ( How to use this example )

The following example shows how to get the color depth of a screen (in this case, the primary display screen):

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var mainScreen:Screen = Screen.mainScreen;
var colors:uint = mainScreen.colorDepth;

mainScreen

property

mainScreen:Screen [read-only]

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0

The primary display.

Implementation
public static function get mainScreen():Screen

Example ( How to use this example )

The following example shows how to get the Screen object representing the "main" screen of this computer:

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var primaryScreen:Screen = Screen.mainScreen;

screens

property

screens:Array [read-only]

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0

The array of the currently available screens.

Modifying the returned array has no effect on the available screens.

Implementation
public static function get screens():Array

Example ( How to use this example )

The following example shows how to get the array containing the available screens:

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var screenArray:Array = Screen.screens;

visibleBounds

property

visibleBounds:Rectangle [read-only]

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0

The bounds of the area on this screen in which windows can be visible.

The visibleBounds of a screen excludes the task bar (and other docked desk bars) on Windows, and excludes the menu bar and, depending on system settings, the dock on Mac OS X. On some Linux configurations, it is not possible to determine the visible bounds. In these cases, the visibleBounds property returns the same value as the screenBounds property.

Implementation
public function get visibleBounds():Rectangle

Example ( How to use this example )

The following example shows how to get the usable bounds of a screen (in this case, the primary display screen):

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import flash.display.Screen;
import flash.geom.Rectangle;

var mainScreen:Screen = Screen.mainScreen;
var screenBounds:Rectangle = mainScreen.visibleBounds;

Method Detail

getScreensForRectangle

()

method

public static function getScreensForRectangle(rect:Rectangle):Array

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0

Returns the (possibly empty) set of screens that intersect the provided rectangle.

Parameters

rect:Rectangle — A rectangle with coordinates relative to the origin of the virtual desktop, which is the top-left corner of the primary screen.

Returns

Array — An array of Screen objects containing the screens that contain any part of the area defined by the rect parameter.

Example ( How to use this example )

The following example shows how to get the array of screens containing at least part of a given rectangle:

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import flash.display.Screen;
import flash.geom.Rectangle;

var rect:Rectangle = new Rectangle(-200, 100, 1000, 600);
var intersectedScreens:Array = Screen.getScreensForRectangle(rect);

Examples How to use this example

ScreenExample.as

The following example defines a DockingWindow class to create a window that docks to the sides of the screen. This task is accomplished by performing the following steps:

Responding to keyboard events to determine the side of the screen on which to dock.
Accessing the static Screen class method getScreensForRectangle() to get the Screen object for the screen upon which the window is currently displayed.
Resetting the window bounds based on the screen dimensions.
Redrawing the window content based on the new window dimensions.

Note, this class is intended to be used as the root class of an AIR application with the settings SystemChrome="none" and transparent="true". To use this class in a window with system chrome, you must take the chrome thickness and the minimum width of the window into account when calculating window location and size.

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package
{
    import flash.display.Screen;
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.display.StageAlign;
    import flash.display.StageScaleMode;
    import flash.events.KeyboardEvent;
    import flash.geom.Rectangle;
    import flash.ui.Keyboard;

    public class DockingWindow extends Sprite
    {
        private const dockedWidth:uint = 80;
        private const dockedHeight:uint = 80;
        
        public function DockingWindow():void{
            stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;
            stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
            stage.addEventListener(KeyboardEvent.KEY_DOWN,onKey);
            dockLeft();
        }
        
        private function onKey(event:KeyboardEvent):void{
            switch(event.keyCode){
                case Keyboard.LEFT :
                    dockLeft();
                    break;
                case Keyboard.RIGHT :
                    dockRight();
                    break;
                case Keyboard.UP :
                    dockTop();
                    break;
                case Keyboard.DOWN :
                    dockBottom();
                    break;
                case Keyboard.SPACE :
                    stage.nativeWindow.close();
            }    
        }
        
        public function dockLeft():void{
            var screen:Screen = getCurrentScreen();
            stage.nativeWindow.x = screen.visibleBounds.left;
            stage.nativeWindow.y = screen.visibleBounds.top;
            stage.nativeWindow.height = screen.visibleBounds.height;
            stage.stageWidth = dockedWidth;
            drawContent();
        }
        
        public function dockRight():void{
            var screen:Screen = getCurrentScreen();
            stage.nativeWindow.x = screen.visibleBounds.width - dockedWidth;            
            stage.nativeWindow.y = screen.visibleBounds.top;
            stage.stageWidth = dockedWidth;
            stage.nativeWindow.height = screen.visibleBounds.height;
            drawContent();
        }
        
        public function dockTop():void{
            var screen:Screen = getCurrentScreen();
            stage.nativeWindow.x = screen.visibleBounds.left;
            stage.nativeWindow.y = screen.visibleBounds.top;
            stage.nativeWindow.width = screen.visibleBounds.width;
            stage.stageHeight = dockedHeight;
            drawContent();
        }
        
        public function dockBottom():void{
            var screen:Screen = getCurrentScreen();
            stage.nativeWindow.x = screen.visibleBounds.left;
            stage.nativeWindow.y = screen.visibleBounds.height - dockedHeight;
            stage.nativeWindow.width = screen.visibleBounds.width;
            stage.stageHeight = dockedHeight;    
            drawContent();        
        }
        
        private function getCurrentScreen():Screen{
            return Screen.getScreensForRectangle(stage.nativeWindow.bounds)[0];
        }
        
        private function drawContent():void{
            const size:int = 60;
            const pad:int = 10;
            var numHSquares:int = Math.floor(stage.stageWidth/(size + pad));
            var numVSquares:int = Math.floor(stage.stageHeight/(size + pad));
            with (graphics){
                clear();
                lineStyle(1);
                beginFill(0x3462d5,.7);
                for(var i:int = 0; i < numHSquares; i++){
                    for(var j:int = 0; j < numVSquares; j++){                
                            drawRect((i * (size + pad)) + pad, (j * (size + pad)) + pad, size, size);
                    }
                }
                endFill();
            }
        }
    }
}

Screen - AS3

Classes x

bounds

colorDepth

mainScreen

screens

visibleBounds

getScreensForRectangle

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