Component Help?

I’d be very very glad if somebody could help me with this. I’m developing my own Text animator as a component for use in Flash 2004. Troubles is that I can’t seem to call any methods on my newly created SWC file or for that matter on a precompiled clip when I try. It works fine in the movie I create it in and will work if the original MovieClip Symbol is present in the library but otherwise no. Bearing in mind I’ve tried to first subclass the MovieClip object which works as I say normally fine. I’ve tried to subclass the UIObject and again this only works in the original movie. Does anybody have experience of creating clips and if they do have they come across this problem? Better yet does anybody know of a better source of info than Macromedia? Any help apreciated.