as3 marquee select drag multiple child objects - actionscript-3

Question

Can anyone tell me how to achieve marquee selection effect with AS3 to select multiple movieclips by drawing a dynamic rectangle around them and then drag and drop them anywhere?

Answer 1

Don't use startDrag() if you need multiple objects to be draggable, since it only allows one object to be dragged at a time. Instead, listen for mouse events and do the moving manually:
var oldX:int;
var oldY:int;
var dragging:Boolean = false;
function onMouseDown(evt:MouseEvent):void {
dragging = true;
oldX = evt.stageX;
oldY = evt.stageY;
}
function onMouseMove(evt:MouseEvent):void {
if (!dragging) return;
var dX:int = evt.stageX - oldX;
var dY:int = evt.stageY - oldY;
for (int i = 0; i < selectedClips.length; i++) {
var clip:DisplayObject = selectedClips[i];
clip.x += dX;
clip.y += dY;
}
oldX = evt.stageX;
oldY = evt.stageY;
}
function onMouseUp(evt:MouseEvent):void {
dragging = false;
}
This code assumes that:
Your array of selected objects is called selectedClips.
Your array of selected objects all inherit from DisplayObject.
You have added event listeners on all draggable objects for the MOUSE_DOWN, MOUSE_MOVE, and MOUSE_UP mouse events which call these functions.
If any of those three conditions are not met, update my code or your code to work properly. Also, if you need to do any additional handling when the objects are dropped, you can use the mouse up handler to add custom code.