# Losing Focus

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/losing-focus/119845>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [August 18, 2004, 2:08pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/losing-focus/119845 "2004-08-18T14:08:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![fumeng](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9adbd/32.png) [@fumeng](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/fumeng)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2004, 2:08pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/losing-focus/119845/1 "2004-08-18T14:08:29Z")

</div>

hi.

in one function i’ve created almost 30 movie clips with a text field inside them:

```auto

// Create the Empty Movie Clip
_dateClipHolder:MovieClip = _root.createEmptyMovieClip("_dateClip"+j,_root.getNextHighestDepth());
			
// Create a Text Field Inside them
_dateClipHolder.createTextField("_thisDate"+j,j,0,0,30,30);

```

and in a totally separate function (called later) i want to access these clips and do things to them:

```auto

_dateClipHolder["_thisDate" + _today].border = true;
_dateClipHolder["_thisDate" + _today].borderColor = 0xFFFFFF;
_dateClipHolder["_thisDate" + _today].background = true;
_dateClipHolder["_thisDate" + _today].backgroundColor = 0xCCCCCC;

```

obviously it’s a scope issue but i don’t know how to get scope back. any ideas?

i can trace out:

```auto

trace(typeof _dateClipHolder);

```

in the second function and it returns “movie clip”. but all those textfield properties, i.e. border, borderColor, background, etc…aren’t being executed. i can’t even trace out:

```auto

_dateClipHolder["_thisDate" + _today]

```

it returns undefined.

and while on this note, is there any place i can read about scope and focus issues in flash? this is my one constant problem from project to project and i need to figure it out once and for all.

thanks. - fumeng.