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.
<?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:
<?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>





That’s great. But how can i make all the content of a flash/flex page selectable? I hate that you can’t simply select text and do a simple ctrl+c or right click copy. Please help. Thanks for this site and all the great tips.