Flex Examples

The following examples show how you can control whether a user can select the text in a Flex TextArea control by setting the selectable property in MXML and ActionScript.

Full code after the jump.

View MXML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2008/08/06/toggling-whether-a-user-can-select-text-in-a-textarea-control-in-flex/ -->
<mx:Application name="TextArea_selectable_test"
        xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
        layout="vertical"
        verticalAlign="middle"
        backgroundColor="white">

    <mx:ApplicationControlBar dock="true">
        <mx:Form styleName="plain">
            <mx:FormItem label="selectable:">
                <mx:CheckBox id="checkBox"
                        selected="true" />
            </mx:FormItem>
        </mx:Form>
    </mx:ApplicationControlBar>

    <mx:TextArea id="textArea"
            selectable="{checkBox.selected}"
            text="The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." />

</mx:Application>

View source is enabled in the following example.

You can also set the selectable property using ActionScript, as seen in the following example:

View MXML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- http://blog.flexexamples.com/2008/08/06/toggling-whether-a-user-can-select-text-in-a-textarea-control-in-flex/ -->
<mx:Application name="TextArea_selectable_test"
        xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
        layout="vertical"
        verticalAlign="middle"
        backgroundColor="white">

    <mx:Script>
        <![CDATA[
            private function checkBox_change(evt:Event):void {
                textArea.selectable = checkBox.selected;
            }
        ]]>
    </mx:Script>

    <mx:ApplicationControlBar dock="true">
        <mx:Form styleName="plain">
            <mx:FormItem label="selectable:">
                <mx:CheckBox id="checkBox"
                        selected="true"
                        change="checkBox_change(event);" />
            </mx:FormItem>
        </mx:Form>
    </mx:ApplicationControlBar>

    <mx:TextArea id="textArea"
            text="The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." />

</mx:Application>