AS3 - Can Bitmap classes dispatch mouse events?

Question

I'm trying to learn AS3 and have run into a small problem.

I have a Bitmap class to which I add a MouseEvent.CLICK listener, but the event doesn't seem to be dispatched.

I use Flashdevelop to write AS3 code and Flex to compile.

I have two classes, Enemy.as and Player.as

The Player.as looks like this:

package Player 
{
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;

[Embed(source="../../assets/leek.swf", symbol="Leek")]

public class Player extends Sprite 
{
    public function Player() 
    {
        trace("Player constructed");
        addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, handleClick);
    }

    private function handleClick(e:MouseEvent):void 
    {
        trace("Clicked Player");
    }

}

}

The Enemy.as looks like this:

package enemies 
{

import flash.display.Bitmap;
import flash.events.MouseEvent

[Embed(source="../../assets/gardengnome.png")]

public class Enemy extends Bitmap 
{
    public function Enemy() 
    {
        trace("enemy constructed");
        addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, handleClick);
    }

    private function handleClick(e:MouseEvent):void 
    {
        trace("Clicked Enemy");
    }

}

}

The two classes are pretty much identical except that one is a Sprite and I embedded a symbol from a swf file that I got from a tutorial, and the other is a Bitmap and I embedd a png file into that.

The Player class (the one that's a sprite and uses a symbol) fires off the MouseEvent.CLICK when I run the project and click on the Player image, but the Enemy class does not.

There are no compile warnings or errors, so I'm having a hard time understanding what is the issue exactly. Is it because one is a Sprite and the other a Bitmap, or is it because one uses a prepared symbol from a swf, while the other is just a png?

How can I make a Bitmap class respond to MouseEvent?

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

From ActionScript® 3.0 Reference for the Adobe® Flash® Platform:

The Bitmap class is not a subclass of the InteractiveObject class, so it cannot dispatch mouse events. However, you can use the addEventListener() method of the display object container that contains the Bitmap object.