Using Director > Behaviors > Writing behaviors with Lingo |  |

Writing behaviors with Lingo

If you are familiar with Lingo, you can author your own behaviors.

From the perspective of Lingo, a behavior is a script with these additional features:

| Each instance of the behavior has independent values for properties. Lingo uses a `property` statement to declare properties that can have independent values in each instance of the behavior. See `property`.
| The same set of handlers can be shared by multiple sprites or frames.
| The handlers in a behavior are basically the same as other handlers. Include as many handlers as appropriate to implement the behavior.
| A behavior is usually attached to multiple sprites or frames. As a result, the sprites and frames share the same handlers. Director tracks which instance of the behavior is which by assigning each instance a reference number. The variable `me` contains the reference for the object that the instance of the behavior is attached to.
| In many cases it's most efficient to create behaviors dedicated to specific tasks and then attach a set of behaviors that perform the variety of actions you want.
| The behavior can have parameters that users edit from the Parameters dialog box. The optional `on getPropertyDescriptionList` handler sets up the Parameters dialog box. See `on getPropertyDescriptionList`.
| A description of the behavior can be added to the Behavior Inspector. The optional `on getBehaviorDescription` handler displays a description of the behavior in the Behavior Inspector. See `on getBehaviorDescription`.
| A brief description appears as a tooltip for the behavior in the Library palette if the optional `on getBehaviorToolTip` handler that creates the tooltip has been written. See `on getBehaviorTooltip`.