Because I'm a terrible, bad person who likes to do things differently for no reason, I'd love to be able to do something like mySprite.graphics.drawText(...).
As I understand things, the only way to get text currently is to create a TextField and add it as a child of mySprite. In my particular situation I'd rather not do that.
Any advice appreciated!
ooo
The TextField class inherits the InteractiveObject class which inherits the DisplayObject class. Display objects cannot be displayed unless they are programmed to, which is what addChild does.
See http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/text/TextField.html for more information.
Also, from http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/mx/states/AddChild.html -
The AddChild class adds a child display object, such as a component, to a container as part of a view state. You use this class in the overrides property of the State class.