Colin Moock, author of the excellent book Essential Actionscript 3.0 has written an interesting blog post regarding an issue which Flash (still) has with finding the visible dimensions of a DisplayObject. The key word there being “visible” as the way Flash currently reports a DisplayObject’s size does not account for things which effect on-screen appearance such as masking. For example if you have a 40×40 DisplayObject with a 20×20 mask the getBounds method, as well as the width and height properties, report the DisplayObject as being 40×40, which is technically correct, but Flash currently has no way of easily reporting the actual visual (masked) size.
Colin has raised this through the Adobe Flash Player and Issue Management System which I urge anyone with even a passing interest in Flash to go and vote for. This is your chance to help shape the future of the Flash player and resolve one of it’s most lacking features.