Creating an Alert control with non-selectable text

Ever wonder how you could create an Alert control but make the text be non-selectable (without subclassing the Alert control, that is)? Well, here’s how.

By using the hidden powers of the “mx_internal” namespace, you can access the Alert control’s internal alertForm property (an AlertForm object — for more information see the AlertForm.as class in the mx.controls.alertClasses package) and from there modify the internal textField property (a UITextField object), and set the selectable property to false.

Taa-daa! Non-selectable text.

Full code after the jump.

Since this example uses the mx_internal namespace, you can’t always depend on this behavior to work in future versions of the Flex SDK. Use at your own risk.

View MXML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2007/08/10/creating-an-alert-control-with-non-selectable-text/ -->
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
        layout="vertical"
        verticalAlign="middle"
        backgroundColor="white"
        creationComplete="init()">

    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            import mx.controls.Alert;

            private var a:Alert;

            private function init():void {
                Alert.buttonWidth = 100;
                Alert.okLabel = "You rule!";
                Alert.cancelLabel = "I hate you!";
                a = Alert.show("This is some text, but you cant select it.", "An Alert control with unselectable text", Alert.OK | Alert.CANCEL);
                a.mx_internal::alertForm.mx_internal::textField.selectable = false;
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>

    <mx:Button label="Launch Alert" click="init()" />

</mx:Application>

View source is enabled in the following example.